Baking a Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake is usually a staple during parties, especially birthday celebrations. There are people who would like customizing their cakes but do not have the budget to do so. This essay aims to teach you the steps on how to bake a chocolate cake. It would be helpful, especially if you love to cook and bake your own cakes, or think that you want to improve the taste and quality of the cakes that you serve to your friends and family. Baking a chocolate cake is fun but requires a lot of hard work and patience. Guidelines and tips would be stated in order to help you in the baking process, especially if you are doing this for the first time.

Before starting the baking process, you must first clean your hands and also the place where you would be baking. This is to ensure that there would not be any germs or dirt on the cake. Personal hygiene should be observed throughout the baking process

The first step is getting the ingredients. You would need one cup of flour, one cup of sugar, half a teaspoon of salt, three tablespoons of cocoa, one-third cup of yeast, half a cup of water, vegetable shortening, frosting, and a quarter cup of chocolate chips. You would also need a big bowl, a round pan, a wired rack, and a baking oven. It would be better f you use fresh ingredients in baking the cake because fresh ingredients make the cake taste better and the cake would last longer when refrigerated.

First, you must beat the butter until it becomes soft. After that, add the sugar and mix. The next step is adding the eggs by portions. This is done so that you would mix the ingredients properly and to avoid difficulty in mixing. Make sure that there are no lumps on the mixture before moving on to the next step. Stir in the following liquid ingredients into the mixture: vanilla, water and milk. After doing so, grease the inside of the pan with vegetable shortening so that the cake will not stick to the pan after baking it. Make sure that the pan is well covered. The next step is pouring the mixture into the pan. It would be useful to place a long toothpick or thin barbecue stick at he middle pf your mixture before baking it. This would help you determine whether the cake is done or not. Make sure that the stick is standing straight upright. Turn the oven on at 180°C for 10 to 15 minutes before putting the pan in it. This allows time for the oven to preheat. After that, put the pan at the center of the oven. Doing this would let the heat be distributed evenly to the pan. Bake the cake for 40 to 50 minutes. If the sides shrink slightly away from the pan, it is an indication that your caked is already done. Another tip would be to slowly remove the toothpick or stick that you placed earlier. If it comes out clean, then your cake can now be removed from the baking oven. Let it cool for 10 to 15 minutes before putting it onto a wired rack. After putting it on the rack, leave it there for at least an hour before you start the decorating process. When the  cake is already cooled down, you can now apply a thin layer of frosting onto the cake and refrigerate it until the frosting sets. This is done in order to seal in the crumbs and to ensure a clean final appearance. Apply the final and thicker layer of frosting. For additional garnish, sprinkle chocolate chips on top of the cake. You can also add other decorations on top of the cake if you desire to do so.

When baking a cake, you must be patient since it requires a lot of time. You must also be patient and work hard to ensure that the cake will turn out how you wanted it to be. Learning how to bake a cake is very useful since it could be a way of bonding with your friends and family. The process is fun to do because it requires your creativity, especially when decorating the cake. You  may make mistakes while baking, but that just paves the way for you to learn and improve your baking skills. After all the hard work and patience, it’s nice to be able to share a delicious cake with friends and family, or just eat it on your own as a reward for yourself.