The Ultimate time-saving Chocolate Cake (with the perfect Chocolate Frosting)

I have eaten more than my fair share of chocolate cake over the years. I love to cook them almost as much as I like to eat them. Here's my check list for the perfect chocolate cake:

• it must taste of chocolate - not cocoa
• it must be moist
• it must not be too flat
• soft chocolate icing, not bitter and hard icing
• it must be easy and quick to make
• it must make people smile

So, after much experimentation I have found what, for me, is the ultimate chocolate cake and icing recipe combo.

My favourite cake recipe is by Nigella Lawson but I have altered the recipe slightly (due to personal taste and the need to make it as easy as possible using things you are more likely to actually have in your fridge).

Using 25cm tins x2. This will serve 8-10 people:

300g plain flour

300g caster sugar

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

60g best-quality cocoa

260g soft unsalted butter

3 large eggs

2 teaspoons real vanilla extract

225ml sour cream

200ml natural yoghurt

25-50ml milk (start with 25ml and add the extra if the mixture looks too thick)

Here's the good part. I have tried the recipe the hard way (i.e. "cream together the butter and sugar, then...") and I have tried it the easy way (i.e. bung it all in together) and here's what I discovered

IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE!

None at all.

So, carefully measure out the ingredients. Put all the ingredients into a blender or food mixer together, and blitz! Just make sure that you don't over mix it. Turn off the mixer as soon as everything looks well combined. The mixture should be quite loose.

Bake at 180°C  for around 30 minutes (but keep checking).

Once your cake is perfectly cooked, leave them to cool in the tins for about 5 minutes and then turn out to cool completely. The cake should be very springy and light.

If you have time and would like to ice your cake too...

The best icing recipe I have found to go with this kind of cake does not come from Ms Lawson. I prefer Lorraine Pascale's chocolate frosting. It is simpler and more tasty in my opinion.

Beat 300g butter and 225g icing sugar together. Then mix in 150g melted and cooled dark chocolate. This should make gorgeous, soft, buttery icing that is easy to use.

Use about a third of this in the middle.

Then use a knife or palette knife to smooth the remaining icing all over the outside of the cake.

And there you have it. This is the fastest and tastiest chocolate cake that I can make! 

I challenge you to find a faster one!

...and if you do, I'd love to steal the recipe :-)

Baking Traditional Chocolate Cake

The recipe can be found at: www.nigella.com/recipes/view/old-fashioned-chocolate-cake-119

As I only had 25cm tins I made 1 1/2 this recipe. I also couldn't find sour cream at our local shop, so I used half milk and half double cream.

The genius of this recipe is that all you have to do is measure everything out, put it in a blender and mix until smooth-fantastically simple.

It makes a gorgeously rich and smooth mixture that makes you want to lick the bowl clean!

Spoon this mixture into 2 tins and bake as directed. I found that the cakes cooked slightly too quickly (going brown on top while still runny inside) so I turned the oven down slightly.

The cakes came out really well. Considering that I'd messed around with the recipe, I was pleasantly surprised. They were moist and smelled amazing.

I bought a piping bag this morning so I wanted to try and decorate the cake in a simple but better way that usual. I have absolutely no icing skills but I thought that simple swirls would be manageable! I made a simple butter icing but made it rich and chocolatey by replacing some of the icing sugar for cocoa and adding a small drizzle of cream. 1/3 went in the middle of the cake and most of the rest of the icing was spread on top using a palette knife. Then I had a good go at decorating the top with swirls and actually it wasn't too difficult! It looked more professional than I thought and was quite simple. Finally, I added a tiny amount of edible glitter - for no other reason than I fancied making it girly!

Taste Test! 


Well, I couldn't have hoped that it'd taste as good as my Mum's cake. But I tell you what, it came a good second! I highly recommend this recipe. It is simple and fantastic, especially if you don't have much time. I suspect that it is reliable too, as it came out so well even after I had messed around with the ingredients. 




My friends agree, this is a winner - simple, sumptuous and all round sensational! You need this cake in your life!

  

Happy Mothers Day Everyone!

Recapturing Memories of Traditional Chocolate Cake

 So, this morning I woke up and realised that tomorrow is Mother's Day. Don't get me wrong, I've made a card and sent the flowers, my duty is done! But Mothers Day always makes me think about my childhood and all the lovely memories my Mum helped to give me. 

My first ever birthday cake was teddy bear shaped and chocolate. Fantastic.

Like may children, chocolate cake quickly became a firm favourite of mine and many subsequent Birthday cakes have been chocolatey and all of them baked lovingly by my Mum. Now that I live away from her I have to bake my own cake - I know - it's tragic! 

I haven't managed to recapture the same taste. I have had some successes and some failures but none of them have that same taste. Today I did some research to try and get a good but not too complicated recipe to make in honour of Mothers Day. 

I came across this recipe by Nigella Lawson http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/old-fashioned-chocolate-cake-119 for 'Old-fashioned Chocolate Cake' and I though, yup that sounds good!  Here goes.