2paw: Friday Food: Basic Chocolate Cake

This cake recipe is from the June BH&G magazine. The recipe in the magazine is incomplete. It doesn't say what to do with some of the ingredients and whether to add them or not. I used my initiative and the cake was fine. On TV last night they showed the cake being made and my instincts were correct. I do wonder though, that the man used his mix master to beat in the dry ingredients and chocolate/cocoa. I always fold them in gently by hand to make the cake as light as possible.

This is a very good cake. It smells nice and chocolaty and tastes great.

I had no golden caster sugar, so I substituted 1/2 cup of the caster sugar for brown sugar. I used hazelnut meal instead of almond meal. Note that there are two amounts of butter: one for melting with chocolate and one for creaming with the sugar.

On TV they showed the cake with a chocolate ganache topping, vanilla frosting and fresh berries and then as a layered cake filled with coffee frosting and grated chocolate.

Basic Chocolate Cake serves 10-12

200g good dark chocolate, chopped
75g unsalted butter
1/3 cup cocoa
2/3 cup very hot water
1 1/2 cups raw or golden caster sugar
175g unsalted butter
4 eggs
2 tspn vanilla extract
2 cups plain flour
1 tspn baking powder
1/2 tspn bicarbonate of soda
1/2 cup almond meal
cream and extra grated chocolate to serve (I used a Flake)

Preheat the oven to 160*C and grease and line a 23cm cake tin. My tin was not very high so I made sure the baking paper extended above the rim.

Melt the chocolate and 75g of butter either in the microwave or in a glass bowl over a pan of just simmering water. Just before it is properly melted, remove from the heat and stir till smooth and combined. Set aside to cool.

Mix the cocoa and hot water till smooth and allow to cool as well.

Cream the remain butter and sugar of your choice until it is pale, light and creamy. Remember to scrape down the sides of the bowl, you can see in the picture the original colour of the mixture before it was creamed.

Add the eggs one by one and the vanilla extract and then beat only till combined.

Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarb soda and almond meal. In a medium bowl fold in the creamed butter mixture and then add the cooled melted chocolate and butter and the cocoa.

Spoon into the tin and smooth the top. Bake for 1 hour 5 minutes. Check it a little earlier as it is quite chocolaty and will easily catch on the bottom. It is cooked when a skewer pushed into the centre of the cake comes out clean.