Recipe: Chocolate Cake

The thing about chocolate cakes is that there are so many recipes online and honestly, I have tried too many of them.

I have made it with buttermilk, sour cream, with melted chocolate, with cocoa powder, with butter, with canola oil, with cheap ingredients, with expensive ones. 

Some of these recipes turned out mindlessly sweet, while others were too bitter. Some became rock hard while others won't hold its shape. 

This recipe for chocolate cake makes one that is simple, relatively cheap, not too sweet, and the pièce de résistance of it is that it stays moist even without you having to microwave it.

That to me comes pretty close to a perfect chocolate cake. 

I would however stress that you try  your utmost best to get good quality cocoa powder (imported if possible). It makes the world of a difference.  This simple attention to detail will give you the most beautiful, dark and handsome cake. I promise. 

Ingredients:

1/3 cup best quality cocoa powder
1/3 cup cake flour
1/3 cup plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda

3/4 cup caster sugar

pinch of salt

1/4 cup of boiling water 

3 tbsp canola oil

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

2 eggs, separated

1. In a bowl, combine cocoa powder and boiling water. Mix to make cocoa paste. Set aside to 

    cool. 

2. Separate bowl, whisk together flours, baking powder and soda, sugar and salt. 

3. Once cocoa paste cooled sufficiently, put in the yolks,oil and vanilla. Stir to combine.

    (It'll look really ugly now, don't worry - it'll turn out fine)

4. Pour half of the dry ingredients into wet. Mix until moistened, then add in the rest. 

5. Pour in egg whites and mix until combined. 

6. Pour batter into a 9x9 baking pan, bake at 160C for 20-25mins. Skewer inserted in should

    come out clean)

7. The cake does come out pretty thin, looking more like a sheet cake. This allows you to use

     it as a base for layer cakes.

You can do many things with this cake. If you like it simple, you can just make a simple

chocolate ganache glaze for the top, or you can make two layers and fill the middle with 

bananas or marshmallows. Or if you want to make it complex, you can bake four layers, fill each layer with chocolate mousse and frost it with more chocolate (whilst studying for your finals).

Do try it and let me know how it turns out :)

Happy baking.