Take Your Chocolate Cake To The Next Level With One Simple Swap

The only thing better than chocolate is more chocolate. When you're making a chocolate cake, however, there are only so many places where you can keep infusing the flavor. You've got the cake itself, of course, ideally at least a couple of layers' worth. Those layers can then accommodate a whole extra coat or two of decadent chocolate frosting. Then you can add something like chocolate shavings for a more dynamic texture, as well as aesthetic appeal. Other than additional decorative chocolate touches, you've reached the end of the cocoa-paved road, unless you look to the flip side.

The next time you bake a chocolate cake, do not dust the pan with flour as a recipe might direct you to. Instead, give it a few good shakes with the very cocoa powder you used for the batter. This not only lets you get just a little more chocolate in there, it also eliminates any pesky white speckling the flour would have left behind. This is just the kind of detail that can make a chocolate cake even more bakery-worthy, and one that you should add to your list of everything you need to know about baking with chocolate.

We know: Outside of very niche personal preferences, cocoa powder, whether it's natural or Dutch, is not particularly delicious on its own. It needs the mingling of other ingredients, primarily sugar, to shed its bitterness and transform from an ingredient to a dessert. But you can still safely dust the bottom of your cake pan and keep your treat sweet.

Many recipes will call for you to grease and flour the bottom of the cake pan before sprinkling on any flour or powder. Choose butter as your lubricant and its light sweetness will have a bit of a mellowing effect on the cocoa powder. But more importantly, between the cake, the frosting, and any other accoutrement, you've already packed in thousands of grains of sugar — plenty to neutralize a light snow of cocoa on the very bottom. You should also be sure to shake out any extra before pouring in your cake batter so that more of the powder sticks to the buttered pan than your baked cake.