Originally at this point of time there was going to be one more week left of school holidays, but due to covid, again, school holidays has been extended in my state for yet another two weeks. 🙄
To help us all cope 😜😉 I asked my partner which he would prefer: chocolate cake or triple chocolate cookies... and the answer was chocolate cake with extra chocolatey frosting!
Desperate for the taste of sugar -- (remember, I'm enjoying the holidays and will eat ALL THE THINGS until I'm forced to walk 50km a week again) -- I hurried into the kitchen and got to work.
Ingredients:
- 1 3/4 cups of Self Raising Flour
- 1 3/4 cups of White Sugar
- 2 teaspoons of Baking Soda
- 1 pinch of Salt
- 1/2 cup of Cocoa Powder
- 2 room temperature Eggs
- 1/2 cup of Vegetable Oil
- 1 cup of Milk
- a good splash of Vanilla
- 1/2 cup of Hot Coffee
Preheat your oven to 160 Celsius. (This recipe is enough to make two cakes, technically. I'm cooking the entire lot in one tray, so we'll need to cook at a lower temperature for a longer time.)
Sift into your very large bowl the Flour, Salt, and Baking Soda. Followed by sifting in the Cocoa Powder. And then mixing in the sugar.
Mix all of these dry ingredients together very well until everything is combined nicely.
Once the dry mixture is all uniform, add in your Eggs, Oil, Milk and splash of Vanilla. Not the coffee, not yet.
Many cake recipes will tell you to use mixer and whisk for 2-3 minutes to combine everything. But I just don't see the point. It's supposed to make the cakes "fluffier!" and "have more air in it!" they say... but in my personal experience, it doesn't matter if I use a mixer for the recommended amount of time or just combine it all together with a wooden spoon or spatula.
Maybe I'm just not enough of a connoisseur.
Either way. Mix this how you please. I'm a filthy peasant and mix with a spatula only to minimise having to clean so many things.
Butter the tray you plan on using! I'm using a lazy-person's disposable aluminium foil tray because a) I don't have a cake tin, and b) to minimise having to clean so many things.
Now is a good time to make up your super hot half-cup of coffee and prepare to mix-mix-mix it into your chocolatey cake mixture. As well as enhancing the flavour of the chocolate, this hot coffee has the added perk of dissolving any left over chunks you might have in the mix! So another reason to be lazy and not have to worry about cleaning the mixer.
Pour the mixture into your prepared tray and chuck it in the oven! Gently, of course.
For the size tray I'm using, with the entirety of the mixture in it, I'm cooking at 160 degrees Celsius for 40 minutes. If you're using two trays, a bit hotter for less time will work too...
Of course, check cake by poking the centre with a toothpick or something to see if it's cooked or not.
My cake came out perfectly at exactly 40 minutes!
Now the long wait begins. The impatience. Waiting for the cake to cool down so that it can be frosted.
I first learnt the importance of waiting for the cake to cool down! around 20 years ago, when I was young, impatient, desperate just to eat the damned cake. It was a blackforest cake. And because I was so impatient, the cream melted when I tried adorning my deliciousness.
Lesson learned; wait for the cake to cool down!
Now that we patiently waited for the cake to cool, it's time to expand upon it's deliciousness with some frosting! I was originally going to do a frosting with the cocoa powder, but used it all in the cake. So. It was time to melt some chocolate and create the frosting that way!
- 1 block of Chocolate, Cooking or Plain
- 1 cup of Salted Butter, softened
- 2 cups of Icing Sugar (Powdered Sugar)
Melt your chocolate, either in a bowl above hot water or gradually in the microwave. It's the microwave for me! Then allow it to cool a little, you don't want it boiling hot when making the frosting.
While the chocolate is cooling, beat your butter.
Once your butter is beaten and your melted chocolate is cooled, gently combine the two and stir well.
Slowly add your Icing Sugar and mix well until it's a consistency that you like. I added the entire 2 cups.
I'm terrible and am still not using a mixer, but if you're not like me and don't care how many things you have to clean every single day, I'd recommend it over hand-mixing. 🤣
Now it's time to slather your cake with the extra chocolatey deliciousness!
Honestly, there might be a bit tooooooo much frosting. But hey! The more the merrier! And if you were piping it and actually being decorative with it, it's a perfect amount.
And now we shall sit it in the fridge and let the frosting set for a couple of hours before devouring.
Good thing this is planned for dessert after dinner, and brunch tomorrow too. 😅 Plenty of time for the frosting to set!
Except for this one slice... 👀 which I cut before the frosting was ready because I wanted to get a photo in good daytime lighting instead of kitchen lighting later on.
But mmmm... the cake is perfect, the frosting is yummy, and together, it's just the sugar hit I was craving. I'm glad my partner said cake instead of cookies, this is sooo much better. 😄
Until next time! 🍰
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