'Impressive to look at but easy to make, this cake is a good old-fashioned 'Sunday supper' dessert that melts in your mouth,' relates Marsha Lawson from Pflugerville, Texas.
Very nice cake! Those having problems with this being dry are perhaps overbaking their cake. I prepared the recipe exactly as written, including the frosting. I made half a recipe and it produced 18 good sized cupcakes. I piped the frosting and it was just the right consistency for that. The frosting is perfect and comes together perfectly too, the measurements of ingredients being right on. This is a moist, but not dense or fudgey, old fashioned chocolate cake, one I'd be pleased to make again.
Read MoreThis cake turned out SO dry! I've never had a dry sour cream cake before, and after reading the reviews, I decided to try this one but not bake as long as the recipe requires. I baked this in two 9x13 pans for about 22 minutes. The cakes popped out of the pans beautifully. The cake tasted great, but the consistency was like sawdust! I will never use this recipe again, I'd prefer boxed cake mix to this dry cakey mess.
Read More Very nice cake! Those having problems with this being dry are perhaps overbaking their cake. I prepared the recipe exactly as written, including the frosting. I made half a recipe and it produced 18 good sized cupcakes. I piped the frosting and it was just the right consistency for that. The frosting is perfect and comes together perfectly too, the measurements of ingredients being right on. This is a moist, but not dense or fudgey, old fashioned chocolate cake, one I'd be pleased to make again.
I am a cake decorator who has been looking for a GOOD scratch cake recipe for years!! I ended up doing what most other decorators do and Doctored up cake mixes. But I never gave up finding a good scratch cake. Well this is the ONE and ONLY recipe that can out so delious!!! Thanks for sharing this recipe!! I didnt have cake flour so I used regular and still came out good!!
Great cake!! Watch the baking time, and regular flour works just as good as cake flour! :)
EXELLENT CAKE!!! it was very moist and sweet. i just thought the frosting was a bit sour so i would use milk chocolate instead. very nice.
took it to work and everyone loved it. It wasn't messy at all and it cut clean. The icing is so fudgey and firms up when you put it in the fridge. I used low fat sour cream and it worked fine.
Very good!! The first time I made this it was dry, I cut the baking time a little and that did it!
I used Dutched Cocoa inspite of being advised aginst it and I loved it for this cake ... I am notorious for messing up cakes (cookies I can do but darn if I can't ruin a box cake.) To make my odds worse my delightful ex-roommate decided to use my third 9" round as a pie pan and then to use a bread knife to remove the pie... So I had to use only two nine inch rounds I had left and after some research decided I could. It took an extra 20 minuets of bake time but the cake came out AmaZing!!!! Thick and moist and perfectly Chocolaty.
I made this cake for 3 pastry and cake addicts, not to mention a chocoholic and they all declared that this was the best cake they ever had.
This is a very chocolatey cake with a nice texture - although not as moist as I expected. I baked this for my husband's birthday and used a chocolate buttercream frosting. The recipe makes three, good sized layers and should satisfy the needs of nearly every chocoholic. I bet it would be good with a raspberry filling between the layers!
I love to bake but I've never baked a chocolate cake before. After researching I decided to try this one. For Chocoholics its GREAT. My friend who loves chocolate cake just closed his eyes as he ate it like it was heaven!!! I think I will try either milk chocolate or even white chocolate on the frosting next time to give it a little balance otherwise this is a really wonderful recipe. THANK YOU!!!!
we didnt realize we were making three cakes! my daughter and i, guess we needed to read the entire recipe before beginning... anyways, it turned out very well, chocolatey and moist. we added the pure version of our cocoa from a block, that is made here in Trinidad. Just grated it and mixed in with other cocoa, dissolved as directed. will be trying again and again.
This is an absolutely delicious recipe!!! No changes necessary other than the servings sizes!!! I use it for birthday cakes to wedding cakes alike and it always comes out perfect!!! Thank you so much!
Fantastic! Very moist. Made for a friend's birthday and they were impressed (as was I)! I used dutch cocoa and was kind of concerned about how it would fare, but it was delicious.
I've made this cake a number of times and it is now my standard chocolate cake. As I usually do with all dessert recipes, I halved the sugar and it is perfect for our tastes. Comes out very moist provided you don't over bake it. Bake it for even a few minutes too long and it can be a bit dry. Keep a close eye on it and remove it as soon as the middle is done. Gets raves every time.
My review is for just the cake recipe, not the frosting. This cake is really delicious. It is rich and chocolatey, not too sweet. I make cakes from my home for a living and needed a choc cake recipe to replace my old standby (which I still use) that has soy in it. I have a client who is allergic. I cut the recipe in half as this was just a test run to see if I will use it for the graduation cake. Upon reading the reviews, many were commenting on how dry the cake is. Although I suspect this is due to over-baking, I decided to swap out the butter for canola oil to make sure the cake was moist. Butter, while adding a rich flavor, can make for a drier cake. Oil makes a cake much more moist. Since there is so much choc flavor and also richness from the sour cream, you will not miss the butter. You can't taste it to begin with . Go with the oil and it will come out more moist. If the original recipe was 1c canola oil instead of butter, I would have given it 5 stars.
Sadly, I found the cake to be dry and bland, and frosting far too overpowering, plus I didn't have three 9" pans. But the recipe sounded so good that I tried again. I used two 12" pans, which worked out perfectly. I tweaked the ingredients by using 1 1/4 cups boiled water and 1 1/3 cups sour cream. I also added an additional 1/2 cup sugar to the recipe, which I mixed in to the baking cocoa. With these little tweaks, the cake was very moist and oh so yummy! Once I poured the batter into the pans, I carefully added approximately 1/3 cup of my left over chocolate chips to each pan of batter which added more flavor and some fun texture. Be certain to grease and flour your pans well, or the cake WILL stick. I used a chocolate butter cream frosting which turned out to be a big hit. Thank you so much to the original contributor; without your recipe I wouldn't have had a wonderful recipe to play with.
This cake was fantastic! Super easy and so moist and dense that the knife stood up in it by itself! I made it with Cappuccino Mousse (from this site, under Cappuccino Mousse Trifle) as the filling and a Ganache Icing (also from this site) over the top. Even with three recipes to juggle, it was manageable and totally worth the work.
This cake has great chocolate flavor! Very moist for a homemade cake! I made them into cupcakes, and they, unfortunately, baked flat. I will definitely try it again! Freezes really well too.
Y'all, this is one delicious cake (I guess we all have different tastes..But we sure LOVE this one-and it tastes great w/out chocolate too as basic vanilla base cake )! Like others, I'm not at all crazy about the 'lead weight' dense choc. cakes that are popular these days, so this was a nice 'old fashioned' Devil's Food type cake. I would have given it 5 stars, but like others said, it is just a bit dry (even w/being careful not to overbake). So I will be tryin' to tweak it to see what I can do to moisten it up..otherwise it is just right! Thank you for sharing! It's a permanent recipe in the box!
The cake was awesome! We love it. Our daughter claimed it was dry...whatever. The frosting is outstanding as well, though I have to figure out how to make it look darker...
This cake turned out SO dry! I've never had a dry sour cream cake before, and after reading the reviews, I decided to try this one but not bake as long as the recipe requires. I baked this in two 9x13 pans for about 22 minutes. The cakes popped out of the pans beautifully. The cake tasted great, but the consistency was like sawdust! I will never use this recipe again, I'd prefer boxed cake mix to this dry cakey mess.
I have made this cake twice now and plan on making it again and again in the future. It's become a family favorite. Love how the frosting turns into fudge. I have used both Cake flour and regular all-pupose flour when I didn't have cake flour on hand. Make sure to take it out of the pans after 10 minutes or it will really stick. Also do fast work when you make this frosting because it will harden after a few minutes.
Very good cake though very fattening. Do grease the pan very well or it will stick.
I wish I had read the reviews closer. While it is not difficult and looks wonderful my cake was dry :( I should have taken it out @ 25 min. and maybe the advice of adding a sma vanilla instand pudding and water next time as one reviewer mentioned. I will try making this again as I'm sure it has the possibility of being a wonderful chocolate cake.
This was delicious. I scaled down to 10 serves and it baked in my 2 tins perfectly. I suspect you should check for doneness at about the 25 minute mark because my cake turned out slightly dry.
Awesome! I am a total chocoholic and this was one of the best chocolate cakes I have every tried! I did add an extra 1/4 cup of sour cream just because I love it too. I also added an extra 1/4 cup of sour cream to the icing and then reduced the powdered sugar by 1/4 cup to cut down on the sweetness just a tiny bit - even with the minor adjustments, this cake was so rich that I can only eat a small slice in a sitting and it completely satisfies my most intense chocolate cravings.
This cake was VERY DRY. After reading other reviews I was very careful not to overbake. I made it for my Father in laws birthday and he was honest enough to say it was dry but appreciated me making it. I won't be making this one again.
I have not made this cake but I did use the frosting for another choc cake and this is the BEST frosting ever! Will try the cake as well next time!
This is a lot of work for a mediocre dry cake. My house full of teenagers wouldn't even eat it. The frosting was pretty good.
While others have said that the cake was too dry, I found that the cake was too dense for my liking - a heavy fudge cake. I cannot comment on the icing because I used a different recipe.
Sour cream and chocolate become a married couple in this moist cake! We really enjoyed it!
I found this cake to be too rich, especially the icing - however the cake overall wasn't too bad!
I made this at my hubby's request for his birthday. He was very happy...he loves chocolate and this is his favorite kind of cake. I left off a star, though out of my own opinion. The cake was very tasty and moist. The downside, for me, was the frosting. It was a little thicker than I was expecting...not quite as creamy as I had hoped for...more of a fudge texture. It was not, as I had feared, too rich nor too sweet. The flavors were delicious. I will definitely make the cake again...but maybe search for a different frosting. Thanks!!!
This cake is not to our liking. It is extremely dense and dry and the icing is so hard and thick it doesn't even taste like icing.
So good! I have found my chocolate cake recipe for special occasions. Made 3/4 of the recipe (12 servings) and put in two 9" round pans. Made cream cheese frosting with 1/2 cup cocoa added to it. Unbelievable.
The best recipe I have found to date!! I will use this recipe for cake style brownies as well.. Just awesome..
-Converted to 8 US Servings -halved the amount of sugar -subbed all the "cake flour" for Whole Wheat Pastry Flour -baked for 35 minutes at 350 degrees in a sprayed and floured springform pan -came out great! light, fluffy, chocolately, not too sweet- definitely would be even better with some frosting but was trying to keep it light
This was a really good cake and an awesome way to use up soured cream I had in the house!!! We enjoyed the icing a lot, but I am glad that I put a cooked custard inbetween the layers rather than more icing... I think if I would have used icing it between the layers it would have been too much.... tasted great all around... Made this for a Birthday and everyone enjoyed it.
With icing this cake was delicious. However, without icing it is very bland and not as moist as I thought. If you make it be sure to use frosting :-)
this cake is by far my favorite cake to make! it's completely delicious and i have made it numerous times! it is full of flavor! i haven't tried out the frosting recipe because i prefer the traditional buttercream! but this cake is to die for!
this cake was very moist and firm, when you cut the cake, it was so perfect. I had to pat myself on the back for this one.. My kids loved this as well, but the moist yellow cake the enjoyed the most so far... Used chocolate frosting but not from this site
I too found this to be a very dry cake. The saving grace was the frosting. It was very creamy and easy to work with. I added toasted pecans to the frosting and also topped the cake with them. Overall though this is an easy and very good chocolate cake.
This is by far one of THE BEST chocolate cake recipes I've ever tried!! It was a huge hit at a potluck dinner last night (a Sunday night dinner). I couldn't believe how good this came out, even though I didn't have some of the ingredients! I substituted for the sour cream using mayo and Greek yogurt after trying to find substitutions online. I also only used 3 eggs, not 4, since that's all I had. I also had no baking powder, so I used a little more baking soda. This was incredibly soft, moist and tasted like some of the best bakery-bought cakes I've never had! I will make this over and over again. It's great for a birthday cake!
awesome!!!!! turned out terrific, made 4 layer 8 inch cake, frosting is to die for!!!!!!
best chocolate cake i have ever eaten!!! Thanks it was a hit over the holidays, moist and lots of it also! Very tasty..will make it agin and again.
Wasn't too enthused with the whole process of preparation. Baked a little less than even the minimal time and still came out over baked. Because of that, the cake was quite dry and very crumbly. Frosting was okay but hardened too soon and made it difficult to work with. While still freshly frosted, tasted good but not great. Will not make this one again. A lot of work for just an okay cake.
Cake was good, BUT DRY! the frosting was really excellent but also dries out, so I guess it just depends what you like
As someone said before, this cake is dry, needs some moisture, the icing however is delicious. I think I'll ditch the cake but save the icing for other cakes.
I made this for my husband's birthday, and it's one of the best chocolate cake recipes I've ever made. It makes three nine inch layers, so I served two layers as the birthday cake and put the other aside to freeze and have later. It's very rich, moist and filling - a small piece is quite enough.
I loved it. Normally, I hate the word moist, but since we're talking about cake, I'll say it. This cake is very moist! I made it for my son's birthday and got tons of complements on it. I baked it in one 13 x9 pan and one 9 inch round pan.
I just made this cake and it tastes fantastic! It smelled amazing while it was baking in the oven and it came out so moist and chocolaty. I will be making this cake again!
Maybe it's just me, but I did not like the texture of this cake at all. It was not that chocolately and I did not like the sour cream frosting. I was afraid of a tangy frosting and I was right - I didn't like the tang!
Yummy! Just delicious, moist and so good! It bakes up so nicely. Will definitely make this recipe again.
I made this cake exactly as in the recipe. Was quite dry and not at all moist and rich. Will not make again.
i literally pulled this out of the oven about fifteen minutes ago. went the full 35 on cook time b/c the center was taking a long time to cook. ten minutes of cooling finished it off. used my cake leveler to take part off, and even without frosting this cake is FANTASTIC. moist, fudgy, slightly crumbly, i will definitely be making this cake again. thanks for sharing the recipe!
I also had a problem with it being dry. I could be the weather to. But otherwise a very good cake.
Made this cake this afternoon and I am disappointed in the outcome. As with other reviewers it is dry and falling apart. I am an experienced cook and never have these issues in baking.
This is a fabulous classic chocolate cake. Absolutely not dry - in fact I have never tried the frosting, since my family does not like super sweet cakes. It tastes wonderful just with a dusting of powdered sugar.
