Let Them Eat Cake...

I managed to have a birthday come and go without a cake this year and to be honest I feel a little devastated to admit that... I'm not sure this has happened before and I'm pretty certain it shouldn't happen again!

Anyway, to make up for it I made my 'effort' cake yesterday afternoon to go with tea for a special friend :)

Dark Chocolate Tray Cake

500ml Flour

500ml Sugar

pinch of Salt

5ml Bicarbonate of Soda

125g butter (or margarine if you're not a purist)

250ml water

125ml Oil

125ml Cocoa Powder

2 Eggs (I choose big ones from my hens)

125ml buttermilk

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celcius and grease a large baking tray.

Sift flour, sugar, salt and bicarb into a bowl. Well, that's what the recipe I got says... In reality there's absolutely nothing wrong with dumping the ingredients in a bowl and using a whisk to mix them up whilst adding a little air.

Put the butter, water, oil and cocoa in a microwaveable jug and heat through (basically so the butter melts and they can be mixed). 

While this cools slightly beat the eggs and buttermilk. Now add wet ingredients to dry and mix without killing them! (that's 'Lauren' for "fold in gently")

Pour into the prepared tray and bake for 25minutes. This time is a guideline only - which means you should start testing after 25 min... yesterday's cake took closer to 35minutes before my skewer came out clean. Don't panic, just give it another few minutes at a time!

Cool and ice in the tray.

Mind-blowing chocolate Icing

75g butter

30ml cocoa powder

45ml buttermilk

5ml vanilla essence

375ml icing sugar

Melt butter and then add all the other ingredients and mix until there re no lumps. The original recipe had elaborate instructions but I'm of the view that things should be kept simple unless it's absolutely necessary to make them complicated and in this case it definitely doesn't need to be complicated!

Pour over the partially (or completely) cooled cake.

Tannie Esme's chocolate cake recipe

I was first introduced to this delicious cake recipe as a kid, a friend's mom used to make it when we played tennis tournaments... Mom, being mom, made sure we got the recipe and it couldn't be simpler! The best part? it can be frozen and defrosted and iced whenever you're ready! Needless to say this little feature comes in very handy when you have to provide snacks for tennis league every second Saturday...

Esme's Chocolate Cake

750ml Cake Flour

80ml Cocoa

20ml Baking Powder

5ml Bicarb

500ml sugar

pinch of salt

500ml boiling water (I let it cool slightly)

250ml oil (measure this first then the hot water takes the oil out of my measuring cup...)

50ml white vinegar (I have substituted this with whatever vinegar is available many times and haven't been disappointed with the results!)

Mix dry ingredients with a whisk (this is a little trick I learned - it does pretty much the same thing as sifting the dry ingredients as it gets air into the mixture). Add wet ingredients. Mix well.

Pour into a tray pan (I use a glass Pyrex baking dish 15x30cm or so and then serve the cake in the pan)

Bake for 25-30min at 180*C

Ice once cool.

This is a very basic chocolate cake. I jazz it up a little with a really good icing... Any icing will work but this is really special and so easy to make (the ingredients are the silly part)

Dark Chocolate Icing

75g Butter

30ml Cocoa Powder

45ml Buttermilk

5ml Vanilla essence

200g (375ml) icing sugar

Melt the butter and stir in sifted cocoa powder (make sure it's not lumpy!). Stir in buttermilk and vanilla. Sift in icing sugar and mix well. Pour over a partially cooled cake. Allow to set before cutting.