by Maya Girimaji, features editor

Nothing is more satisfying than making something from scratch. It doesn’t matter what it is but the feeling of creating something independently is a feeling everybody should experience. I’ve always enjoyed baking and the result normally turns out well… except for my chocolate cakes. Chocolate cakes are, in my professional opinion as a features editor and cake enthusiast, among the hardest of pastries to make from scratch because even though they’re such  simple recipes, it’s hard to achieve the perfect chocolate cake. I’ve tried so many recipes to find the best chocolate cake but none have  satisfied my expectations. After 2 years of scrolling through Pinterest and experimenting with different recipes, my eyes landed on the headline “The Best Chocolate Cake [ever]”. (Even though every recipe claims to be the “best,” this was indeed the best chocolate cake I’ve ever made.)

Here’s the recipe in all its beautiful chocolate cake glory (along with a link for icing) from Add a Pinch.

I was on a time crunch while making this cake but was able to scramble everything together in under 45 minutes. The hardest thing was just making sure I didn’t spray flour all over the kitchen counter. Nothing so delicious can be whipped together without anything going wrong, but surprisingly, it was the easiest thing I’ve ever baked.

Yet no individual would dare insult their own creation even if it was the worst thing on the planet. Luckily I hada few “food critics” (aka my friends) to judge the cake. And they loved it.

As a “baker”, watching people melt away as they eat your food is probably the best feeling in the world. Probably the one ingredient that made this cake so savory was the espresso powder in the cake mix and icing. Just like vanilla extract, espresso powder enhances the right amount of flavor to make any chocolate dessert ten times better. The cake is moist and the icing is creamy and the two just go perfectly together. The cake melts in your mouth and takes your taste buds to another world. Every bite brings the feeling of being in a small coffee house; comfortable and relaxed without a worry in the world. Paired with a glass of cold milk or iced coffee, this chocolate cake will  brighten the darkest of days. Even if you’re not a chocolate lover, like myself, this simple cake will bring out the chocolate lover in all of us.