If I had to choose my favorite dessert of all time, the only correct answer would be a slice of chocolate cake. Ice cream? I love her. Cookies? Give me all of them. But there is nothing more satisfying to me than a perfectly moist, ultra-chocolatey cake with a tender crumb, cloaked in a not-too-sweet chocolate frosting.
I’ve made my fair share of the “best” chocolate cakes on the internet. I know that espresso powder makes chocolate taste even more chocolate-y, and that you should sift your dry ingredients for fluffier results. What always surprises me, however, is that the secret to the most moist chocolate cake starts with an unusual swap: Use vegetable oil instead of butter.
I always thought butter made everything better, but when it comes to the best dessert, this actually isn’t the case. Take it from Beth Baumgartner, the home cook behind The First Year. She’s also tried all of the tricks for making great chocolate cake, and she swears by using vegetable oil in her popular Texas Sheet Cake recipe. “Through recipe testing, I found that using vegetable oil instead of butter makes the cake even more tender and keeps it soft for days,” she explains.
This all comes down to the amount of fat. Vegetable oil is 100 percent fat, while butter—depending on whether it’s European or American—contains anywhere between 15 to 20 percent water. When using butter in a cake, the water evaporates during baking, leaving you with a slightly drier dessert. While butter is typically used to add flavor to recipes, it’s less important in cake recipes where stronger flavors already dominate, like chocolate.
Compared to other chocolate cakes, Texas Sheet Cake is much thinner because it’s baked in a sheet pan, which means keeping this moisture locked in is even more essential.
Read more: How to Swap Oil for Butter (and Vice Versa)
How To Make the Best Chocolate Texas Sheet Cake
The full recipe can be found on Baumgartner’s blog, The First Year, but here’s the general idea:
Start by blooming your cocoa powder in boiling water and vegetable oil. Add flour, sugar, and baking soda to a large bowl, pour the hot cocoa mixture on top, then combine everything with an electric mixer. Add sour cream, eggs, and vanilla extract to the bowl and mix again. Pour the batter onto a greased sheet pan and bake for about 20 minutes. Frost the cake while it’s still warm and let cool before serving.