Hershey's Half Chocolate Cake

RECIPE: Hershey's Half Chocolate Cake - 350° F

Based on Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Cake, which is usually on the back of the Unsweetened Cocoa can.*

3/4 cup sugar
7/8 cup all-purpose flour (1 cup minus 2 TB)
3/8 cup Unsweetened Cocoa (1/4 cup plus 2 TB)
3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup boiling water**

Heat oven to 350 F. Grease and "flour" baking pans -- that is, use butter to grease the pans, then put a tablespoon of cocoa powder (instead of flour) into a shaker and dust the pans. Start the water boiling.

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.

Maks about 3 cups of batter. Note that the mini cupcake tins take about 1 TB (1/16 cup) per cupcake.

Bake until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean, probably 25-30 minutes.*** Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost with "PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" CHOCOLATE FROSTING.

[July 2016: I've purchased some small bakeware in assorted shapes/sizes***, and have cut the regular cake recipe in half while using the full batch of frosting.]

[Oct. 2023: *When I first transcribed this, the hersheys.com recipe on the cocoa can and on their website called for 1½ cups of sugar. They've recently bumped it up to 2 cups. **I suggest boiling twice as much as you need, and then measure out the water for the recipe. ***The square Wilton pans take about ¼ cup of batter per square, and only 20 minutes to bake.]

Perfectly Chocolate Buttercream Fosting

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.

[July 2016: I used soft butter and whiz everything up in my Kitchenaid stand mixer. If I use the Special Dark cocoa, I usually need to add a little more milk so it's not too stiff.]

[July 2017: Lately I've been using Hershey's Chocolate Glaze instead.]

Hazel Boston-Baden, P.O. Box 17522, Anaheim CA 92817.

[May 2021: Using my ice trays was a mistake. Next time, I'm going to try rounding off some of these quantities.]