Hello,

I'm about to make a chocolate cake and I have a few questions:

1. Should a chocolate cake typically contain salt? Watching cooking shows it
seems that just about everything should be seasoned, according to professional
chefs, but there's no salt in the ingredients. It's a boiled chocolate cake
(some ingredients, inc. water, baking soda boiled and cooled before eggs, flour
added). The butter is listed simply as "butter". Commercial butter is normally
salted to an unknown degree. If I use unsalted butter should salt be added; if
so how much for a standard-sized cake?

2. If I bake and ice the cake on Monday and keep it in the fridge will it still
be in good shape on Friday? (i.e., no noticeable degradation).

3. I have a vague recollection of asking this before, but there was no magic
solution. The mixture is very wet before the flour is added and you always get
bits of flour that will not mix in. My mother solved this by using an electric
mixer or blender, but I don't think the cake was as good as when the flour was
mixed in gently by hand (and you put up with a few small flour pockets). Is
there another technique whereby I can mix in the flour evenly by without any
detriment to the cake?