- 5 weeks ago
Pastry chef Caroline Schiff joins Bon Appétit to make her perfect chocolate cake: an ultra-moist, four-layer showstopper with silky chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream and a glossy chocolate sauce soak. From using oil and sour cream for a soft, tender crumb to balancing dark and milk chocolate with flaky sea salt, Caroline shares her best baking tricks for creating a rich yet surprisingly light chocolate cake from scratch.For more recipes like this one, preorder Caroline’s cookbook Daily Dessert, out 10/13/26: https://www.pastryschiff.com/cookbook/
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00:00I have been working on this recipe for years. This is its best version. Today we
00:07are going to make my perfect chocolate cake. I'm not gonna lie to you, this is a
00:12project bake. There are so many little tricks in this recipe, many layers. It's
00:18got Swiss meringue buttercream, multiple kinds of chocolate. It's an oil-based
00:22cake so it's gonna stay super moist. It's a real show-stopper. I'm gonna start by
00:27making the cake batter. So I'm using cake flour. Cake flour is really fine. It has
00:37really low gluten content. That's important. It's gonna give us a really
00:42delicate, beautiful cake. If I'm being honest, most of the time I don't even
00:46bother with sifting. However, when you are working with cake flour you have to
00:50because those lumps are really hard to get out. Okay, so now we're gonna add
00:55baking powder, kosher salt, baking soda. Baking powder is both acid and base.
01:03Baking soda is just a base but this is not chemistry class. Basically these are
01:08leaveners. It's gonna make our cake rise, fluffy, beautiful. Now we are going to
01:13start working with the wet ingredients. You will notice here that I have quite a bit
01:18of oil. You will also notice there is no butter. That is by design. An oil-based cake
01:23stays extra moist, soft, and supple. Do not worry. Stay with me. There's gonna be a
01:29ton of butter in the buttercream. Many, many sticks of butter. You're gonna get
01:33your butter. So we're going to start with cocoa powder. I am whisking the cocoa
01:38powder with boiling water. This activates it, hydrates it, makes it super smooth so
01:43you don't have to sift it. And it's gonna combine really beautifully with all the
01:46other ingredients. We're gonna add the sugar. We want it super sweet. A lot of
01:51recipes will call for room-temperature eggs. I have done this recipe a million
01:56times. I've used room-temperature eggs. I've used eggs right out of the fridge and
02:00it's all fine. You're fine. Next, we're gonna add the oil. And if you add it just
02:05sort of gradually, it's much easier to emulsify in. We're gonna add the dry to the
02:11wet. We're gonna be really delicate and gentle so we don't get any gluten
02:16development. What is gluten development? As you work the flour, the gluten develops.
02:20And it gets kind of tough. We're gonna add sour cream. This is going to make the
02:25cake even more tender. It's got a lot of acid in it and adds a little tanginess which
02:30I like and kind of balances all that sweetness and sugar. We're also going to
02:35add some vanilla. We're gonna add one more ingredient. This is also kind of like
02:40a little secret baker's trick. White distilled vinegar. This is acid. In here you
02:45have the baking soda which is a base. If you ever did a science fair growing up
02:50and you did that volcano where you pour the vinegar on top of the baking soda
02:55and you get this like eruption, that is kind of what we want to do here in the
03:00oven. It's gonna react together and make a really light fluffy cake. So my oven is
03:06preheated to 325. We're gonna prep our pans, divide the batter evenly. I strongly
03:13advise you to get a scale. It's so easy and it makes a really precise baked good.
03:20So these are gonna go in the oven with a rack set in the middle for about 50-55
03:25minutes. And while they are baking we're gonna make the Swiss meringue buttercream.
03:35What is it? It is buttercream that's made with cooked meringue. So egg whites and sugar. And
03:42then we add a whole bunch of butter. I prefer it to an American buttercream because it's
03:48not as sweet. It is silky silky silky smooth. And the meringue actually stabilizes it a bit.
03:55So if you were making this cake on a hot day for an outside festivity, the buttercream is
04:01gonna be much more stable. Double boiler. I'm vigorously whisking the egg whites and
04:07the sugar to turn them into a meringue. While this happens, they are also going to cook.
04:12Once all of the sugar is dissolved, you know it's ready. And the best way to test it is to
04:19just get a little between your fingers. If it feels grainy, the sugar is not dissolved,
04:23you gotta keep going. And you want to keep it moving. If you stop whisking for any significant
04:30amount of time, it's gonna start to scramble. And that's gross. So we are just about there.
04:35This is looking really good. It's nice, opaque, smooth. So this is all set. We're gonna bring
04:41it back over to the mixer. Let's have a look and see if our meringue is ready. We're looking
04:49for stiff peaks. Go like that. Oh my god. She's gorgeous. Holding its shape, beautiful, glossy.
05:00I'm gonna turn down the speed just a little bit and we'll start adding our butter. This
05:04is like five sticks of butter. I told you there would be butter. There is butter. There's plenty
05:08of butter. Just add it a few tablespoons at a time. This is salted butter. That salty,
05:14sweet combination is just so mouthwatering, especially with all that milk chocolate that
05:20we're gonna add to it. Now I'm gonna add a little vanilla. Let that incorporate. If you
05:24wanted vanilla buttercream for something else, that's it. You got vanilla buttercream. But
05:30I don't want vanilla buttercream. I want chocolate. This is milk chocolate. I love combining milk chocolate
05:37and dark chocolate. You've got like that intense bitterness from the dark chocolate. You've got
05:43that creamy, sweet, maltiness from the milk chocolate. You can totally make this buttercream
05:50ahead of time. It can be left at room temperature for a day. And you actually don't want to refrigerate
05:55it because when you refrigerate it, that butter is going to solidify and then you're not going
06:01to be able to spread it onto your cake. This is the beautiful consistency that you're looking for.
06:08It's just like spreadable, smooth, velvety, absolutely gorgeous. Our buttercream is ready.
06:15You can just set it aside and we are going to move on to the glossy chocolate sauce.
06:23This is just a delicious classic chocolate sauce. I keep it in my fridge. It lasts for weeks. I drizzle
06:31it on anything and everything. But today we're going to use it to soak the cake layers. So it's going
06:37to
06:37add even more chocolate to the cake and keep those layers really moist and delicious. Water in the pot,
06:43corn syrup. This is what makes it glossy. Sugar. Don't worry about the lumps in the cocoa
06:49powder. As we heat it and whisk it, it's going to smooth out. Vanilla, a little salt. Let's bring
06:57this over to the stove. So high heat, because we want to bring this up to a boil and start
07:02to reduce
07:02it, get it nice and thick. You just want to whisk it, breaking up all of those lumps of cocoa
07:08powder.
07:08You'll know it's done when it's reduced by about a quarter and it'll coat the back of a spoon
07:15really nicely. Let's check our cakes. Cake tester. These look gorgeous. And that comes out clean.
07:24You're done. They smell incredible. So our cakes have cooled to room temperature because we did
07:32parchment and grease. They just popped right out. So easy. These look gorgeous. Nice and bouncy. Now
07:40we're going to chill them a little further before we assemble. My cakes were wrapped up and chilled. We do
07:49that
07:49because they're a lot easier to slice and frost when they're a little cool. This cake is celebratory. It's four
07:58cake layers. So we have to split each of these in two. You want to get down on the level
08:03of the cake. This is going to
08:05give us the flattest, most even cut. And I'm really just taking off that very top bump. This is your
08:13snacking cake. So you want to have a bowl handy so you can put all your cake scraps in here
08:19and then you
08:19can snack on them as you build your cake. It's very important. So I'm going to saw into it but
08:26also rotate
08:27it as I go. That way I'm basically getting the most even cut as possible. Pick out a cake stand
08:35that you love or a serving platter to keep it neat and tidy. I'm just going to line it with
08:40some strips
08:41of parchment paper. I like doing three pieces in a triangle. It covers all the sides. And then once
08:47we're done frosting and everything, you just pull them away and you have like a beautiful, neat, clean
08:53cake stand. It's assembly time. So we're going to do cake, glossy chocolate sauce, soak, buttercream,
09:01rinse and repeat. Soaking our cake layers in this beautiful glossy chocolate sauce is just going to
09:07make them even more indulgent. Because the cake has all these beautiful air bubbles in it, thanks to
09:13the reaction between the vinegar and the leaveners, it's really going to just like soak through. The cake
09:18is going to drink it up. The perfect tool to spread your buttercream is an offset spatula. It's got this
09:25little angle here. That means you can frost the cake in a super even layer. I am actually going to
09:33soak
09:33the top layer as well in the glossy chocolate sauce. The other layers have it and I don't want the
09:38top
09:38layer to feel left out. Now we're going to crumb coat it. So crumb coating essentially means we're doing
09:44just very thin layer of buttercream and then we're going to chill it. That first layer of buttercream
09:51catches all the crumbs. So that way when you put the final layer on, you don't get any crumbs in
09:57it.
09:57Our cake has been chilling. It's beautifully crumb coated. So we have the rest of our buttercream
10:03and we're just going to go for it. Oh, so satisfying. I love just like some swooshy tufts. I think
10:11it looks
10:11really whimsical and pretty. Finishing touches. Even more chocolate, more cocoa powder. Just going
10:17to gently dust it over the top. And of course, some flaky sea salt. You want a little pop of
10:24savory
10:25with your sweet and it's just going to enhance all those flavors. Look at this statuesque beauty.
10:34Like imagine if this was your birthday cake. You'd be so happy. Secret to a clean slice. You want
10:41hot water. We're going to dip our knife into it. It's going to heat up the blade a little bit,
10:45dry it off and quickly slice. You get a nice clean slice every time. Look at her. She's gorgeous. This
10:51is the appropriate portion size for a slice of chocolate cake. You can see where the glossy chocolate
10:58sauce really soaked in. That beautiful smooth buttercream. I am ready for a bite. Going in. Oh yeah.
11:09Oh my god. It's like eating a chocolate cloud. Like this is insane. It's the perfect balance of salty,
11:16sweet. There's a lightness to it and yet it's like so rich. The cake itself is like not too sweet
11:24because of that dark cocoa powder, the sour cream and then the milk chocolate and the buttercream just
11:30has that like creamy sweetness. It's so balanced. This is so worth putting the time in. Set aside a
11:38day for an occasion or just because and make this cake. Share it with the people you love. This is
11:45love
11:45on a plate. This cake, my favorite chocolate cake, is from my book, Daily Dessert Treats on Repeat. With
11:53so many other sweet things, you're going to want to make everything.