Eggless Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Cake - Eggless-baking February Challenge

My tryst with frosting cakes is not much to boast about. I have had the icing bags and nozzles for two years now and I have hardly used them. Firstly, baking the cake in the limited time I have on weekends is challenging enough, with a little pair of hands bungling the recipe unknowingly in her zest to help her mommy bake the goodies. Secondly, waiting for the cakes to cool down hardly happens. She wants a bite of the stuff immediately as soon as the cake is out of the oven. Thirdly, she might want to help me with the frosting too and thus I might finally snap at her after the prolonged attempts at bungling, sigh! I guess, I am the world's worst mom. She shows so much zeal and care to help me out and I call it bungling :(. 

Anyways, I have frosted cupcakes with buttercream a couple of times, and a bundt, pound cake with buttercream. I have used ganache once for an eggless chocolate cake. I have never used whipped cream to frost cakes. So why am I delving into statistics? To apologize in advance for any offensive attempts at frosting in this post!

This recipe seriously gave me jitters. I did not want to frost with buttercream. I certainly did not want to make 2 cups of buttercream and use it on a large cake. 

I decided to make the batter without adjusting the original recipe except for the eggless variation; I then decided to make two small 6 inch cakes and a host of cupcakes. I made just 1 cup of buttercream, and frosting 4 cupcakes and one 6 inch cake. 

As always, the original recipe from Hershey's goes first. I shall present the cake recipe only in both the original and eggless form. The frosting is normal chocolate buttercream and the recipe is from Hershey's verbatim.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water
2  eggs
1 cup milk
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups sugar

Method
1 Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans.
2 Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. 
Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. 

Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.
3 Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. 
Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. 
Frost with "PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" CHOCOLATE FROSTING. 10 to 12 servings.

Variations
ONE-PAN CAKE: Grease and flour 13x9x2-inch baking pan. Heat oven to 350° F. 
Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 35 to 40 minutes. Cool completely. Frost.

THREE LAYER CAKE: Grease and flour three 8-inch round baking pans. Heat oven to 350°F. 
Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake 30 to 35 minutes. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. 
Cool completely. Frost.

BUNDT CAKE: Grease and flour 12-cup Bundt pan. Heat oven to 350°F. Pour batter into prepared pan. 
Bake 50 to 55 minutes. Cool 15 minutes; remove from pan to wire rack. Cool completely. Frost.

CUPCAKES: Line muffin cups (2-1/2 inches in diameter) with paper bake cups. Heat oven to 350°F. 
Fill cups 2/3 full with batter. Bake 22 to 25 minutes. Cool completely. Frost. About 30 cupcakes.

Now for the eggless version.

Eggless Variation

Ingredients:

1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water
1/2 cup milk powder  + 1/2 cup milk (See Note)
1 cup milk
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 cups sugar

Method
Heat oven to 180 degress C. Grease and flour two 6-inch pans and some cupcake moulds.
Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl.
Dissolve 1/2 cup of milk powder in 1/2 cup milk and keep it aside. Add milk, milk powder paste, oil and vanilla to the dry flour mix; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. 

Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans. I used 2 small round cake moulds (5-6 inches) and 6 cupcake moulds.
Bake the small cake moulds for 40-45 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. 
Bake the cupcakes for 22-25 minutes. 
Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. 
Frost with "PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" CHOCOLATE FROSTING. 10 to 12 servings.

Note I used Nestle's sweetened milk powder and so I reduced the quantity of sugar by 1/2 cup. Since adding 1/2 cup milk to the milk powder made the batter even thinner, I wonder if I should have just used the milk powder without the additional 1/2 cup milk. 

"PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" CHOCOLATE FROSTING


1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine
2/3 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency.
Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla. About 2 cups frosting.

I halved the recipe for the frosting and made 1 cup of buttercream. I used it to pipe some roses and stars on one 6-inch cake and 4 cupcakes. I still had about 1/4 cup buttercream. I plan to use it as a spread on bread within the next couple of days.

Verdict: The batter was too thin and I felt, I could have just used milk powder instead of dissolving it in another 1/2 cup milk. The texture was fine and the cake tasted good, except that one cake sunk in the middle.