Saturday, September 27, 2014

Just a Simple Chocolate Cake


One of the many pleasures I have is living so close to my daughter and grandson.  This might mean I babysit more than many grandparents, but most of the time, we have fun.  (He is 5 years old, so we can't have fun all the time, that just would not be normal!)

One of the bonds we have though, is the love of baking.  But our focus is not the same.  I enjoy the challenge and the fun involved, Corbyn likes the end product and would skip all the process of measuring and waiting if that were possible!

My original idea of working through "My Baking Journal" in a systematic matter is not compatible with Corbyn's approach....so we are repeating a cake that he wanted to bake for his Mum. He knows she enjoyed this cake and I am surprised we had not added it into this blog already.

I have the idea that this is also one of Corbyn's favourite recipes since he had to rate the result out of ten and gave it 135 plus 1 million/10.    Since he is only 5 years old, I will not worry about his lack of grasp of fractions (yet)!


Nutella is not part of this cake, but Corbyn liked the idea that it was here!



Corbyn is very aware of food hygiene, or rather, he really likes the idea of wearing aprons! So when my niece, Morgan, offered to help, he insisted she also wear an apron!



As always, an unadorned recipe with no comments or photos will follow at the end.




Simple Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:
There is a hint of something I did wrong here.....answer at the end!

170g butter
170g caster sugar
140g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
85g drinking chocolate
3 large eggs
3 Tbs boiling water

(Corbyn decided to add about 1/4 cup white chocolate chips and this was really a nice touch!)

Instructions:

1.  Grease or line an 18cm (9 inch) square cake tin and preheat oven to 180C, 350F

2.  Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

3.  Beat in the eggs, and then add the boiling water.

4.  Sift in the flour, baking powder, and drinking chocolate.  Mix well.  Add chocolate chips if using.

5.  Transfer mixture to tin and bake for 25-30 minutes until well risen.  The cake will be ready when you insert a knife and it comes out clean with no mixture sticking.

6.  if you intend to ice this cake, do this after the cake has cooled completely.  Both times we have made this, we have not iced it.  The cake is just delicious enough without icing!





After we went through all the steps and put the cake in the oven, I had a look at the tin containing flour.....and it dawned on me, this was Plain Flour, not Self Raising Flour......!   Too late to do anything but hope.  At least we put in the baking powder and this seemed to be enough.  The cake was delicious, even made wrong.  How lucky for all of us!



"I want someone to look at me, the way that I look at chocolate cake."  
Unknown quote



Simple Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:

170g butter
170g caster sugar
140g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
85g drinking chocolate
3 large eggs
3 Tbs boiling water

(Corbyn decided to add about 1/4 cup white chocolate chips and this was really a nice touch!)



Instructions:

1.  Grease or line an 18cm (9 inch) square cake tin and preheat oven to 180C, 350F

2.  Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

3.  Beat in the eggs, and then add the boiling water.

4.  Sift in the flour, baking powder, and drinking chocolate.  Mix well.  Add chocolate chips if using.

5.  Transfer mixture to tin and bake for 25-30 minutes until well risen.  The cake will be ready when you insert a knife and it comes out clean with no mixture sticking.

6.  if you intend to ice this cake, do this after the cake has cooled completely.  Both times we have made this, we have not iced it.  The cake is just delicious enough without icing!




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