Hershey’s Perfectly Chocolate Chocolate Cake

A good few years ago, I wanted to make my husband a cake for his birthday.  He asked for chocolate with chocolate frosting.  I could have made it easy on myself and just bought one, or even made one from a box, or at least got frosting from a can, but I really wanted to go the extra mile and make it from scratch.  While IMing with my friend Martha (anyone keeping track of how many times her name comes up on here?), she said the best chocolate cake ever comes off the back of the Hershey's cocoa container, with one tiny, but key, modification -- coffee!  She was so right, and this has been our go-to chocolate cake recipe ever since.  Most recently, I made the cupcakes for his birthday this year, and also for his father's birthday this past weekend.

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
• ¾ cup Hershey’s cocoa
• 1 ½ tsp. baking soda
• 1 ½ tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 1 cup boiling water
• 1 Tbsp. instant coffee or instant espresso

DIRECTIONS

1. Heat oven to 350˚. 
2. For a cake, grease and flour two 9" round cake pans.
   For cupcakes, line (2) 12-cup cupcake tins.
   (I actually had enough for another 6 or so cupcakes)
    
3. Combine dry ingredients (sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda and baking powder) in large bowl. 
4. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla, beating on medium speed for two minutes. 
5. Add instant coffee/espresso to boiling water, and stir to dissolve. 
6. Stir hot mixture into the rest of the batter -- batter will be quite thin.
    
7. Pour into prepared pans/tins.
   (The Pampered Chef Large Scoop, creates the perfect portioned sizes)
   
8. Bake 30-35 minutes for cakes...about 17 minutes for cupcakes,
   or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
   
9. Cool 10 minutes and remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely.

Frost with Perfectly Chocolate Frosting or Butter Cream Frosting.