Wednesday 22 February 2023

Forever Chocolate Cake

Yep, another Cookbook Club recipe, this time for our IRL club - from Nagi Maehashi's book RecipeTin Eats: Dinner.  This is a fabulous cake!  And so easy to make.  It has a hint of coffee, which gives it a happy little twist, and brings out the chocolate flavour.  Nagi calls this 'My Forever Chocolate Cake'.  And it really is a winner in the easy and delicious stakes.  I'll definitely make it again.  

Nagi likes to use cup measurements, but also gives grams - yay!  As a food blogger, I spend countless moments working out measurements!  And also translating into non-metric for my fine U.S. readers :=)  Crumbs, I wish everyone used the same measures :=(  Remember the disaster I had with using suet for dumplings?  I worked out the amounts, but crazily got 'em all mixed up!  I still have bags of suet mix in my freezer...

And speaking of mistakes in the kitchen, brings to mind the time my sis-in-law was visiting and decided to make baklava.  So she laboriously hand-chopped all the nuts, as we didn't have a food processor back then, and ... used salt instead of sugar for the syrup!!  Rendering said-baklava completely inedible.  She was not a happy chappy.  I tend to sample my icing sugar every time I use it, even though I know which tin it lives in :=)


you can never have too many sprinkles!


Serves 12:

ingredients:

1¾ cups (265g./9.5 oz) plain flour

3/4 cup (60g./2 oz) cocoa powder (Dutch if possible; unsweetened!)

1½ tsp baking powder

1½ tsp bi-carb soda

2 cups (400g./14 oz) white sugar

1 tsp sea salt (Nagi says to use cooking salt, which has larger grains than table salt)

2 large eggs

1 cup (250 mL/8.5 oz) milk (cow's I guess)

1/2 cup (125 mL/4.3 oz) neutral vegetable oil (I used sunflower)

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 tsp instant coffee powder 

1 cup (250 mL/8.5 oz) boiling water OR use freshly brewed coffee instead of the boiling water  see Notes


Chantilly Cream:

300 mL/10 oz heavy whipping cream

2 tsp vanilla extract

3 Tbs icing sugar


Decorate with whipped cream, or Chantilly cream, or buttercream icing

Lots of sprinkles for decoration!  I used pink flamingoes!  And a Flake chocolate bar, smooshed into small(er) pieces


Method:

On goes your oven to 180C/356F to heat up

Butter a 22cm/9 inch cake tin and line the base with baking paper

Into a large bowl, sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder and bi-carb

Add the sugar and salt, and give it all a quick whisk

In go the eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla and whisk briskly (for 30 seconds says Nagi)

Whisk in the coffee powder and boiling water - the batter is thin, Nagi tells us

Pour/spoon the batter into the prepared cake tin, and bake for 45 minutes or until a skewer in the centre comes out clean

Allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn it out onto a wire rack to become completely cold

Smother it in lots of Chantilly cream, or whipped cream, or icing and throw on many delightful sprinkles

(If using Chantilly cream, just beat the ingredients together till you have lovely, firm peaks)


Notes:

Nagi says you can use full-fat or low-fat milk, so I'm guessing cow's

Use sunflower or safflower or canola oil - something neutral in flavour

Nagi doesn't say whether you use the coffee powder AND brewed coffee or just brewed coffee instead of the coffee powder and boiling water - I'm assuming she means instead of!  I just used coffee powder and boiling water anyway

She also says you can use a rectangular cake tin (33cm x 22 x5) sorry the brain gave out; I can't work that out.  Or use a bundt tin and bake for 50 mins., or 3 x 20cm/8 inch tins for 25 mins., or 2 x 22cm for 35 mins. - you get the picture!



butter and line your tin

whisk the dry ingredients together

and add the wet ingredients

whisk everything together till well-combined

whisk in the coffee and boiling water

pour the thin batter into the prepared cake tin

baked!

a beautifully moist bottom :=)

billowy Chantilly Cream

and heaps of sprinkles and pink flamingoes


  

c. Sherry M.

37 comments:

  1. What a gorgeous cake. I will be making one this week. It sounds amazing.

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    1. that's great Lori. Hope you enjoy it. It's so moist and delish.

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    2. I made it Saturday and all I can say is Thank You for sharing. Both of us loved it!! So moist and so flavorful without being too sweet.

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  2. A lovely cake, for sure! And I can relate to the measurement issue, especially since I am part of the problem. :) I made a huge mistake the other day (you will be reading about it on the blog) - a recipe called for 1 kilo of one ingredient and 2 kilos of the second ingredient. Stupid me did 1 kilo of the first ingredient, and 2 pounds of the second. OOPS! However, in the end (and with a second trial), it worked out perfectly. My "mistaken" way made what I think was an even better recipe... unlike the salt in the baklava! :(

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    1. Can't wait to read your story David. So funny about measurements ... :=)

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  3. Now that’s a chocolate cake! Yummy!

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  4. hi Tandy, I pretty much use sea salt for all dishes - sweet and savoury. I don't mind a bit of salt in my sweets :=)

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  5. That's a chocolate heaven...so sinfully rich and tempting, Sherry.

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    1. You said that right Angie. I think I gained 10 lbs. just looking at the photo., Bernadette

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  6. I'm going to try it with gluten free flour. I'll let you know what happens.

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  7. I do remember that suet mix catastrophe! As you said, I wish we all used the same measurements. I actually prefer grams, and I started out that way with the blog years ago...but with most of my followers in the US, I realized I needed to switch. Oh well. In other news, this cake looks fantastic! And it's good to know it can stand up to all those sprinkles. Now that's how you celebrate the right way!!

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    1. i love grams :=) Never enough sprinkles for me ...

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  8. Oh my! And when do I see this amazing deliciousness? At the start of Lent!

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  9. Oh my goodness! This looks spectacular (not what I need to see during Lent so I am bookmarking it for later)

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  10. I love the name of this recipe. And it sounds/looks soooo tasty! :-) ~Valentina

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  11. What a delicious looking cake! I love the sprinkles, too.

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  12. Yum! Looks so good, now I know what you needed that Chantilly cream for :)

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    1. a friend who doesn't even like cream was very happy to eat Chantilly cream :)

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  13. This may be my new favorite chocolate cake recipe (smile). Looks delicious. Your poor sister with the baklava-I would be traumatized too! And why we Americans resisted the change to the metric system remains a mystery to me.

    Velva

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    1. thanks velva. yes very traumatic to waste all that time and ingredients. Metric rules - yay!

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  14. My only problem with this excellent forever chocolate cake is that I wish it would last forever! Ha Ha! Love how it's got a hit of coffee in it too!

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    1. oh yes neil it was good. the coffee was great in it.

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  15. OMG Sherry! That cake is right up my alley. I LOVE cakes with icing and sprinkles. And so pretty too.

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  16. Such a delicious and very pretty cake Sherry. I like to have a whole repertoire of chocolate cake recipes. Can't have too many I reckon.

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  17. Una torta strepitosa, mi piacerebbe tanto provarla, sarà buonissima!

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