#chocolate-cake

#chocolate-cake

Mastering chocolate cake is a great first step for those learning how to craft desserts, and Stewart's website features an easy chocolate cake recipe that makes quick work of the confection. The secret to her perfectly moist cake? Sour cream. Though "sour" seems counterintuitive to a sweet treat, this ingredient provides the right moisture and acidity for a fudgey chocolate cake with a spectacularly soft crumb.

In fairy tales, it's where children get lost, where witches build houses made of cake, and where transformations occur in the shadow of trees. But it's also a place of deep, loamy quiet a world that hums with hidden life. This cake draws on that dark magic: a tender chocolate sponge, earthy and aromatic with cocoa powder and olive oil, topped with a rosemary-infused ganache and strewn with textures that nod to moist soil, fallen leaves, moss, bark and fungi.

Sometimes it's worth skipping the boxed chocolate cake mix and heading straight to the bakery section at your favorite grocery store. Many stores have ready-to-eat cakes that you can easily grab from the fridge or order at the bakery counter. I visited seven different grocery chains to sample slices and full cakes to see which ones deliver indulgent, crowd-pleasing results and which are best avoided.

In our ranking of 13 popular boxed chocolate cake mix brands, we taste-tested several different Betty Crocker varieties. Alas, the highest any of the products ranked was No. 6 (chocolate fudge Super Moist). Across the entire category, boxed mixes by Pillsbury, Krusteaz, King Arthur Baking Company, and Duncan Hines outranked Betty Crocker's offerings by a longshot.

The chocolate cake mix from Dolly Parton delivers a rich, balanced flavor profile, combining deep cocoa notes with a fluffy texture, elevating the boxed cake experience.