Devil's Food Cake

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Pour flour, baking soda and salt in that order into a triple sifter. Sift onto a sheet of waxed paper to distribute the ingredients and set aside.

Place cocoa in a 1 qt mixing bowl. Add the 1/2 cup of lukewarm water and whisk to combine, set aside to cool.

Pour buttermilk, 1/2 cup water and vanilla into a liquid measuring cup.

Crack eggs into a small bowl and whisk together just to combine the yolks and whites.

Place butter in the bowl of a heavy-duty mixer. Cream the butter on medium speed for 30-45 seconds or until smooth and lighter in color.

Reduce speed to low and add the sugars, first the granulated then the brown, in a steady stream. If the machine’s speed is too high the sugars will dance in the bowl and jump out.

When sugar is added, stop the machine and scrape the mixture clinging to the sides of the bowl into the center. The mixture will appear sandy. Increase speed to medium and cream until the mixture is light in color, fluffy in texture and appears as one mass instead of several pieces of sugar. This usually takes 6-7 minutes.

With mixer on medium pour in the eggs, cautiously at first, tablespoon by tablespoon as if you were adding oil when making mayonnaise.

If at any time the mixture appears water or shiny, STOP the flow of eggs, and increase the speed until a smooth, silken appearance returns. Then decrease the speed to medium and resume adding eggs.

Continue to cream, scraping the sides of the bowl at least once, until the mixture appears fluffy and velvety and has increased in volume. This process, including the addition of eggs, takes about 1 minute. If you take longer, you risk losing the smooth emulsion and therefore lose some volume in the oven.) Stop the machine and spoon in the cooled cocoa mixture, resume at medium speed and mix just until incorporated.

Using a rubber spatula, stir in one-fourth of the flour mixture. Then add one-third of the buttermilk mixture, stirring to blend together. Repeat this procedure, alternating dry and liquid ingredients, ending with the flour. With each addition, scrape the sides of the bowl and continue mixing until smooth, never adding liquid if any flour is visible.

Bake a 9x13 inch cake for 40-42 minutes at 350 or bake two 8-inch round cakes for 22-25 minutes at 350. I use this recipe to bake cupcakes. For cupcakes I start at 15 minutes, test them and either take them out or bake for longer.