Velvet Devil's Food Layer Cake with Coffee Buttercream Frosting

Name: Velvet Devil's Food Layer Cake with Coffee Buttercream Frosting
Yield: Serves 12
Ingredients: 1/2 cup, natural cocoa powder; 2 teaspoons, instant espresso powder, or instant coffee; 1 cup, boiling water; 2 teaspoons, vanilla extract; 12 tablespoons, unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), softened; 1 1/4 cups, granulated sugar; 2 , large eggs, at room temperature; 1 1/4 cups, unbleached all-purpose flour; 1/2 teaspoon, baking soda; 1/2 teaspoon, table salt; 1 tablespoon, instant espresso powder, or instant coffee; 1 tablespoon, coffee liqueur; 1 tablespoon, vanilla extract; 1/2 pound (227 grams), unsalted butter (2 sticks), softened; 2 cups, confectioners' sugar; 1 , egg yolk (beaten) , or 2 tablespoons beaten egg

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Appears in Cook's Illustrated July/August 1994

Desserts or Baked Goods

Chocolate

Cakes

Valentines Day

Starting with a Velvet Devil's Food Cake, the author tests each ingredient to produce the best six chocolate cake recipes, from a sour cream layer cake to a low-fat, low-guilt variation.

SERVES12

TIME1¾ hours, plus 2 hours 20 minutes cooling

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS

While developing our devil’s food layer cake recipe we found very little difference between cakes baked with standard American cocoa and “Dutched” cocoa. We chose water over milk or buttermilk to moisten our cake batter, discovering that ca...

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