Sunday Chocolate Cake, Two Ways


Kitra: This week I wanted a cake-y cake. Something fluffy, that I could top with frosting, and feel like I was having a tiny celebration (instead of isolating at home and refinishing my dresser for the… 3rd? 4th? time).
Jordan: Meanwhile—though Kitra is the one waiting out a COVID exposure period—I’ve spent the day at home with maybe a cold, maybe allergies, or maybe just general exhaustion. Whatever it is, I’m in the type of mood where a tiny celebration just sounds like a tiny chore. I wanted a cake that I didn’t even have to turn out of the pan.
Chocolate cake is usually good for any occasion, so seemed like a solid route to go here.
We made the chocolate cake from Odette Williams’s Simple Cakes, but honestly, this post is more of a set of suggestions than anything. You can use this chocolate cake or another one. Sunday Chocolate Cake is a mood, not a recipe.
For me, I needed something adorable to look at while my bedroom is covered in wood dust, and wanted to use a bunch of freeze-dried strawberries. So, 6-inch 2-layer cake with strawberry buttercream and—importantly—sprinkles.
My cake has some added cinnamon and chili—when I’m sick, I want everything to be a little bit spicy—and an icing based on the one we use for Texas chocolate sheet cake, but more chocolatey and less sweet.
I don’t know that this cake is going to be one I come back to, though it’s perfectly lovely. It’s just so moist that it transforms from fluffy into something… bouncy?
Bouncy is definitely the right word. It’s a flexible recipe, though. I realized that I had no milk, so reached for coconut milk… only to find I had no coconut milk either. Or cream. Or emergency shelf-stable almond milk. So mine was made with water and nonfat milk powder and gluten-free flour and you know what? It came out perfectly fine.
And I used buttermilk because that is never the wrong answer when you actually have it in the house.
So know that if you just need a Sunday Chocolate Cake and your pantry is a little bare, you can probably make it work as long as you have flour and cocoa.
As an added bonus, making a half batch of batter (we both did) means that things bake and cool faster so we went from 0 to cake in about 90 minutes.
Take the below offering and do what you will with it. Just remember: Sunday Chocolate Cake is but a state of mind.
