I have only been scratch baking for about a year. I still have not found a chocolate cake/cupcake recipe I like and I have no formal baking background (to know about the science ).

I found four recipes that I like the "look" of, and set out a comparison of their ingredients in Excel. Can anyone tell me what you think the result will be, **based on chemistry**?? In other words, will one or another be "dense and fudgey" versus "light and fluffy," etc.?

I need to make a 2- or 3-layer sheet out of this, if that matters. I would appreciate your guess

More important: which recipes did you already try?

BakingIrene, I forgot to include a line that I am not big enough nor do I make enough to try all of them Thanks for reminding me! So, none of these. I've tried a couple, but I didn't like them, so I didn't include them here.

I also think I made them when I was first trying to scratch bake, so I don't even think I can use those experiences because I may have made a user error that I wouldn't make now (not using an oven thermometer, using ingredients that were not room temp, etc.)

I understand that you didn't make the recipes in your table yet.

But because you mention some disappointment, it would really help to know which recipes you did not have success with. Never mind how new you were to baking...

As a general comment, you should be weighing the flour (at least) for cake recipes. That makes a BIG difference.

There are also mixing procedures that make a big difference. Just top give you one example for the creaming method: You can use a mixer to cream butter, sugar, eggs--but it works best to fold in the flour by hand.

I would tell you to look for chocolate cake recipes where you mix the cocoa powder with hot liquid (usually water) and let it cool. That mixture helps to make the cake both moist and tender.