Chocolate Slab/Sheet Cake - a là Nigella Lawson

How handy is a slab/sheet cake when you have to feed a crowd?  Very, of course :=)  I have made two recently - one for the 125th anniversary of our Historical Society building (which used to be the Chermside State School), and one for our local indie bookshop The Quick Brown Fox for their third birthday.  

This is a Nigella Lawson recipe; I have all her cookbooks, and have made many of her recipes over and over.  Apparently, there used to be a website which detailed all the "errors" in her recipes; oddly I have found very few, if any, over the years.  Anyway, this one is a beauty and feeds a crowd; these moist, chocolatey cakes went down well with both sets of guests!

the more bling the merrier!

Serves a crowd (from 12 big 'uns to 48 wee bites):

ingredients:

125 mL/4 oz milk (full-fat or your choice)

2 tsp white wine or apple cider vinegar

250 mL/8 oz water

200g./7 oz butter, at room temp. and chopped into chunks

20g./0.7 oz cocoa powder (the good stuff 'cos that's your chocolate flavouring)

200g./7 oz caster sugar

1 tsp bi-carb soda

a pinch of sea salt 

300g./10.5 oz plain flour

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract or paste

For the icing:

50g./1.8 oz butter, at room temp. (unsalted if you fancy - I don't!)

3 Tbs milk

2 Tbs cocoa powder

150g./5.3 oz icing sugar (sifted)

1 tsp vanilla extract or paste

And lots of sprinkles to decorate!!

Method:

Whack on your oven to 180C/350F to heat up

Grease and line your shallow 33cm x 23cm (13 x 9 inch) baking dish with baking paper

Grab a large jug, pour in the milk and the vinegar, give it a good stir, and set aside while you make the cake batter

And into your heavy-based saucepan, you pour in the water, add the chopped-up butter, and the cocoa powder, and place over a medium heat - give it a stir now and then till everything is well-combined and the butter melted in - and then put aside to cool slightly

Now your sugar, bi-carb, salt and flour go into a medium-sized bowl, and you whisk/fork it to combine

The eggs and vanilla go in with the milk in its jug, and you whisk very well to get it beautifully combined - no eggy bits lurking, please

Tip the dry stuff (sugar, flour etc) into your chocolatey saucepan, and beat well!

Then add the wet stuff :=), and beat again till you have a lovely, smooth batter

Pour into your prepared baking tin, and whack it into your pre-heated oven on the middle rack

While the cake is baking, get your icing ingredients together, so you can pour it over the cake once it comes out of the oven - you want the cake to still be warm

Check your cake after 17 minutes; both times my cake was ready then, but give it the whole 20 if needed

Icing: butter, milk and cocoa into a medium saucepan over low-medium heat; stir/whisk till smooth and combined (don't boil)

Then tip in the icing sugar and vanilla, and whisk away till well-combined

Your slightly-cooled cake (which you took out once your cake skewer was poked into its chocolatey heart and came out clean) is ready for the icing, so pour it over the cake sitting happily in its baking tin

And throw on that bling!  As much as you like!

Let it all cool and settle down in the tin, then cut up into the required-size pieces

I put mine into the fridge overnight, as it helped set the icing, and let it all relax into its cakey deliciousness (and you can store in an airtight container for up to 5 days, says Nigella)

eggs and milk

vanilla paste

Notes:

Nigella says you can freeze this for up to 3 months.  But who would? :=); it's not going to last in my house or at any event

I accidentally typed coffee instead of cocoa powder into the icing mix, and I am actually thinking a teaspoon or 2 of coffee powder would probably go down really well in the icing.  I might try that next time, as we all know coffee enhances the flavour of chocolate!

Had a bit of a discussion recently about what is a wet or a dry ingredient; I think most Aussie cooks would call sugar a 'dry', but it seems that (some?) American cooks call it a 'wet' - interesting ...

Also had a discussion about using a cake skewer rather than toothpicks as (it seems) American cooks do.  As well as being efficient (and lasts forever), it is so much more environmentally-friendly than using wooden picks.  So please let me suggest you buy a cake skewer, friends!

yep, vinegar

bi-carb (baking) soda

ingredients gathered

getting the batter together

ready for the dry and the wet :=)

dry in; ready for the (extra) wet stuff

getting the icing together

baked and blinged!

And I hotfooted it down to the bookshop, so they could stash it away in their fridge for the celebrations the next day.

Theresa, co-owner (with her SIL Anna) of the bookshop, at the birthday celebrations,
(with my cake)

(This is a photo from Instagram, so the comments came along too.)  

And let's not forget this building/event (Mr P. is the President and I am the Vice President of the Society).

the Chermside & Districts Historical Society building

(Sorry for the dodgy photo; the sun was in the wrong place.  Winter sun, building facing the west ... )

I didn't make the top one :)

We had over 80 people for the Historical Society event, so the pieces of cake were very tiny :=)  Everyone had a fabulous day at this event.  Many past students of the school caught up after decades!