Appears in Cook's Illustrated March/April 2000
The secrets to this moist, velvety chocolate cake are Dutch-processed cocoa, boiling water, baking soda, and sour cream.
To develop a devil’s food cake recipe with a very moist, velvety texture, we used a combination of unsweetened chocolate and Dutch-processed cocoa powder (which is less acidic than regular cocoa and therefore enhances browning) and mixed it...