Peppermint Devil\u2019s Food Cake<\/h2>\n
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease bottoms and sides of three 8-inch cake pans and dust with flour.<\/p>\n Sift cake flour, measure it carefully and sift again with soda and salt.<\/p>\n In a large bowl, cream butter until soft and airy. Then add sugar a little at a time and continue creaming until fluffy and light.<\/p>\n Add eggs one at a time. Beat batter hard after the addition of each egg.<\/p>\n Melt chocolate over hot, not boiling water. Add chocolate to batter, using a spatula to get every bit from the sides of the container. Mix thoroughly.<\/p>\n Sift about quarter of the flour mixture into the batter, and stir in well. Add about one-third of the buttermilk and stir slightly, not vigorously. Repeat, ending with flour.<\/p>\n Next, mix in vanilla extract and boiling water. Do not overmix.<\/p>\n Pour batter equally into greased cake pans and don\u2019t be alarmed at the thinness of the batter. Bake 25 to 30 minutes. Remove from oven and allow the layers to rest for 10 minutes. Turn out the cakes onto cake racks to cool.<\/p>\n When cool (better yet, on the next day), spread with the frosting of your choice between layers, on sides and piled high on top of the cake. Combine cocoa and powdered sugar in a medium bowl.<\/p>\n In another bowl, use an electric mixer to cream butter with 1 cup of the cocoa-sugar mixture, then add the remaining cocoa-sugar mixture, alternating it with the milk. Beat until frosting is easily spreadable, then blend in vanilla.<\/p>\n When cakes are completely cool, frost the top of each one. Stack them evenly, and frost the sides and top with remaining frosting. Pat the sides with crushed peppermint candy.<\/p>\n Serves 10 to 12.<\/p>\n A side note: Sometimes I make too much frosting. After I use what I need, I freeze the remaining frosting in ice cube trays that I have spritzed first with baking spray. No need to be neat. Just spoon it in; the idea is to have individual blobs. Then, when I make cupcakes, I just pop out a couple of cubes of frosting. Cupcakes will both look and taste fresher.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This season\u2019s knockout centerpiece dessert is Peppermint Devil\u2019s Food Cake. It\u2019s big, rich and way impressive with three dense chocolate-y layers piled high \n [...]<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"coauthors":[12],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/pgh-food\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2016\/11\/20160819hmnPeppermintChocol.1.jpg?fit=1920%2C1305&ssl=1","wps_subtitle":"Brighten the holiday party with a Peppermint Devil's Food Cake","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/pgh-food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/pgh-food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/pgh-food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/pgh-food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/pgh-food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/pgh-food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":163,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/pgh-food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions\/163"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/pgh-food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/pgh-food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/pgh-food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/pgh-food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/pgh-food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Peppermint](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/pgh-food\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2016\/11\/20160819hmnPeppermintChocol.jpg\")
<\/a>
\nPG tested<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n2 teaspoons baking soda
\n\u00bd teaspoon fine salt
\n\u00bd cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
\n2\u00bd cups brown sugar, firmly packed
\n3 large eggs
\n3 ounces unsweetened chocolate (the best quality you can afford)
\n\u00bd cup buttermilk
\n2 teaspoons vanilla
\n1 cup boiling water
\nChocolate buttercream frosting (recipe follows)
\n2 cups crushed peppermint candy
\n<\/ingredients><\/p>\n
\n<\/recipe><\/p>\n
\nChocolate Buttercream Frosting<\/h2>\n
PG tested<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n5\u00bd cups powdered sugar, sifted
\n\u00be cup (1\u00bd sticks) unsalted butter, softened
\n2\u20443 cup milk (plus 1 to 2 tablespoons more, if needed)
\n2 teaspoons vanilla extract
\n<\/ingredients><\/p>\n