Decadent Chocolate Cake

Hiiiiiii

To my lovely followers (one of them being my Dad), sorry that I take so much time to update this blog! I've baked literally one thing in the last two months.. Hopefully this post will make up for things.

So, it was my friend Kristina's birthday yesterday, and I know how much she likes chocolate cake - I planned a yummy surprise for her. We all went out to an Indian restaurant for dinner (ate too much, as per usual), and just as we're all too stuffed to shovel in more food, the cake comes out (along with a lovely sing song of happy birthday)!!!

Here's the story.

I'd never used this cake recipe before, and knew that everyone in my household would want a piece of it anyway. So, I made two.

The first one (made on Sunday) went really well, and was devoured within about 48 hours. It's just a really rich, yummy dark chocolate cake with the creamiest, fudgiest chocolate frosting. This is definitely the holy grail of chocolate cakes.

The recipe is really easy, and it's pretty quick to prepare - in fact, it doesn't actually require that much effort (it's not like you need to get a piping bag out for the frosting).

Ingredients (usually I quote things in ounces/grams, but the recipe used cup measurements)

From the Hershey's Kitchen - this website has the most fantastic recipes!

2 cups of sugar

1 and 3/4 cups of plain flour

1 and a half teaspoons of baking powder

1 and a half teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon of salt

3/4 cup of cocoa powder (I like Bourneville)

1 cup of milk

2 eggs

1/2 cup of vegetable oil

2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

1 cup of boiling water

Method

Preheat your oven to 180C, or 160C ish if you have a crap fan oven (like I do).

Line two 9inch cake pans with baking paper and flour the sides.

Combine all the dry ingredients in a large bowl (sugar, flour, cocoa, bicarb, baking powder, salt) and whisk together until combined.

Now, add in the milk, oil, eggs, vanilla and beat on medium speed until incorporated. With a spatula/spoon, mix in the boiling water. The consistency of the batter will be quite runny, so it'll drizzle into the cake pans with ease. Now, pop it in the oven for about 30-35 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the centre comes out clean. Time varies for all ovens.

I actually only own one cake pan, and my oven only has room (on the optimum shelf) for one. The typical individual (or student) isn't likely to own more than one anyway, so I figured a way around it. Before mixing the wet ingredients into the dry, evenly divide the dry mixture between two bowls (I weighed it all out with scales). Then, with your first bowl of dry matter, mix in half of the wet ingredients (i.e the recipe calls for 2 eggs and 1 cup of milk, so make a well in the middle and add in 1 egg and half a cup of milk, and so on).

Obviously, baking time will be overall longer because you have to wait longer for the cakes to cook individually and for them to cool.

In my oven, each half of the cake took around 40 minutes to cook, but this will obviously vary if you have a better oven. Typically, any where between 30-45 minutes will make sense.

Once they're done, remove from the oven and leave to cool, and then transfer onto some other plate/rack to cool further. 

FROSTING

1/2 cup of unsalted butter (around 115 grams)

2/3 cup cocoa powder

3cups icing sugar

1/3 cup of milk

teaspoon of vanilla

Melt the butter, and mix in the cocoa. Then, alternating icing sugar and milk, beat with a handmixer until lovely and creamy, and add in the vanilla. 

Then, assemble the cake!

Bottom half....

Oh my.

Heaven eh?

Just smoothed on the frosting with a rubber spatula - no effort required!

I made the one for Kristina on Monday afternoon, just in time for dinner in the evening!

It's been likened to 'Brucey Cake' (like the one from Matilda)...

And clearly, everyone loved it. Because this is what was left by the time we'd paid the bill.

Quite impressive!! (although there were 12 of us at the table..)..

Anyway, exams are on the way.

It's around 3am right now, and I've been up writing an essay for the last three hours. And the sad thing is, there's no more chocolate cake left in the kitchen, so I have nothing to snack on during breaks!!

I can probably think of a way to resolve this..

:D

Jen xx