Easy Chocolate Cake

 

Hey 🙂 It’s school holidays so this week I made a simple and quick chocky cake, perfect for kids. This is adapted from a recipe given to me 20 years ago and was one of the first things I’ve ever baked. It’s super easy for beginner bakers, there’s not much room for error so it turns out perfectly every time. It’s a fantastic cake for when you lose that notice from school notifying you of a shared lunch and ‘the kid tells you the night before (!). The ingredients are basic, you probably already have everything in your pantry. It has no expensive dark chocolate, nuts, yoghurt or cream so It’s great when you’re on a budget (this one cost me around $3, excluding the M&M’s). Keeping with the easy and inexpensive theme, I ice this cake with a very simple (but yummy of course!) chocolate icing. 🙂

 

INGREDIENTS

CAKE
1 1/2 cups water
2 1/4 cups castor sugar
190 grams butter
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3 medium-sized eggs (6’s or 7’s)
2 1/4 cups standard flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

ICING
1 cup icing sugar
1 tablespoon of cocoa powder
15 grams of butter (at room temperature and cut into small cubes)
3 drops vanilla essence
2 tablespoons boiling water

 

WALKTHROUGH

Cake

Line a 20 cm W x 8 cm D, round cake tin with baking paper and lightly spray it with non-stick cooking spray.

• Unless it’s traditionally a flat cake I always make my cakes as high as possible because in my opinion, I think they look much nicer.

Place the water, castor sugar, butter (cut into 4 or 6 cubes), cocoa powder and the baking soda into a large saucepan.

On the stove top, over a medium heat, slowly bring the ingredients to the boil, stirring occasionally.

Sit your wooden spoon over the pot in between stirs because when it does boil it will rise really high, real quick (from the baking soda) and this will help to stop it boiling over.

As soon as it starts boiling, turn the heat down to med/low, keeping it at a simmer (‘just’ boiling softly) for 5 minutes……and it might pay to leave the spoon on top (just in case!)

After the 5 minutes is up remove the saucepan from the heat and leave it for 30 minutes to cool down a bit.

• If you like you can use this time to get your other ingredients ready.

 

Now you can preheat your oven to 150°C fan bake oven or 175°C conventional oven, on bake. Place a rack a few rungs below the centre of the oven, so that the top of the cake tin is as near to the middle of the oven as possible.

Next, whisk the three eggs together until frothy.

• You need to combine the eggs because you are going to put them in a warm/hot mix and if you don’t whisk them (combining the whites with the yolks) the whites will cook when they are added to the hot mix and you will have little bits of cooked egg whites throughout your cake.

Add the whisked eggs into the cooled mix, quickly stirring them in with your wooden spoon.

It doesn’t look very nice, lol, but it’ll be fine….

After you’ve stirred the eggs in, add the flour, baking powder and the salt.

Using an electric beater (or even a whisk if you feel like a workout) on a medium speed, beat it for 3 minutes or until it is lump free.

Pour into your lined & greased tin……

Bake it for one hour or until it has started to come away from the sides, springs back when you gently push it in the centre, or when inserting a small sharp knife into the centre comes out clean.

Leave it in the tin until it’s cool enough to turn out onto a cooling rack.

Make sure to let it cool down totally before you ice it.

 

Icing

Boil your jug/kettle.

First, sift the icing sugar and cocoa powder into a medium-sized bowl.

Then add the boiling water, the cubes of butter and the vanilla essence.

Stir it all together, making sure you keep stirring until everything is combined and the cubes of butter have blended in.

• I help the butter blend in by using the back of the spoon and pushing it into the bottom or sides of the bowl.

I leave it for 15 – 20 minutes to cool so that it thickens nicely but is still thin enough to retain it’s ‘glazed’ look. 🙂

I spoon mine on in the centre and use the back of the spoon to spread it out and if it’s not enough I put more in the centre and spread it out again. I put quite a bit on the top of my cake so that it poured down the sides. If I only wanted it on the top I would stop spooning it on when it was around 2 inches from the edges and it will spread to the edge itself because the icing is not stiff.

If you love icing (hello…) you could double the recipe and cut the cake sideways through the centre and spread half the icing onto the bottom half, place the top section of the cake on and then use the other half to ice the top. You will absolutely need to leave the icing sitting for around 20 minutes first so that it thickens.

That’s it, an easy peasy chocolate cake!

Keeping it fresh – This cake is good in an airtight container for up to 3 days in the pantry. Best not to keep it in the fridge as it will harden.