Simple Chocolate Cake I

As far as simple chocolate cakes go, this one is basic. All the ingredients were readily available in my fridge and pantry and they all went together easily with the most effort required for chopping and melting the 250g butter. To cook this cake I used my smallest cake tin, 20cm (9 inch), and it barely filled the tin. Perhaps I should have used a loaf tin, or I should have doubled the recipe! Once cooked I iced the cake with a nice simple icing consisting of cocoa, icing sugar and heated milk, combined and mixed.

The texture of the final cake felt grainy in my mouth and the taste was less than desirable. Not only was there an unpleasant aftertaste (I assuming was due to the abundant amount of melted butter) but it left my stomach feeling a little queasy soon after consumption. Needless to say that the majority of the cake went into the bin as it was pretty much inedible.

Ingredients: Basic
Method: Easy
Rating: 1 Star

Ingredients:
1 cup self-raising flour
3 tablespoons cocoa
250g butter
1/2 cup castor sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 eggs

Method:

1. In a bowl, combine flour, cocoa, sugar, vanilla essence and melted butter.

2. Add eggs and mix together for 1 minute

3. Pour into a lined cake tin and bake for 25 - 35 minutes at 160C

4. If the cake springs back it's cooked. Do not overcook.

Mrs B’s Chocolate Cake

It’s not the simplest chocolate cake, but it is damn close. With a few additional ingredients (which I was surprised I had in the pantry, vinegar and I used vegetable oil) beyond what I would call a basic cake, this recipe produced a medium dense, moist cake with a bubbly, airy, texture. If you have ever eaten an aero chocolate bar, the texture of the cake reminded me of one of those. It was practically fool proof to make, simply sift the dry ingredients, add all the wet ingredients and beat! Can it get any easier than that? Well there is all the measuring and melting, which does make it harder then most packet cakes, but the end product is so much better.

From this recipe I made a small nine (9) inch round cake and six (6) medium sized muffins. I had the muffins on the top rack of the oven, and obviously they didn’t need as long to cook as the cake, but once they were cool enough I lathered on some icing and they were devoured instantly.

I had no cream to make a genache, so I improvised whipping about 2 oz of margarine with the electric beaters, then adding 50g of melted dark chocolate and about half a cup of icing sugar and whipping again to make a very buttery chocolate icing.

Ingredients: Regular
Method: Easy
Rating: 4.5 Stars


Ingredients
1 2/3 cup SR Flour
1 1/4 cup Sugar
2/3 cup Cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoon Carb Soda
1 Tbspn Vinegar + enough milk to make up 1 1/2 cups
1/4 cup Oil
2 oz marg (melted)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon Vanilla Essence

Method
Sift dry ingredients into large bowl, add all other ingredients and beat on low for 1/2 min, then increase to high for 2 mins. Pour batter into a greased and bottom lined 9" tin or 2 smaller tines. Bake in moderate oven 35-45 mins or until cooked when tested. (A large tin will need the 45 mins). Turn out of tin and leave to cool. Ice with chocolate icing or your choice.
* for special occasions you can split the cake in half and fill with whipped cream and top with a Chocolate Ganache or you can put ganache in the middle of cake too.