Quick and Easy Chocolate Cake

I wanted to make a chocolate cake tonight, but ran into a serious shortage of ingredients: firstly, no eggs, seeing that my son eats two eggs on average a day! Secondly, no butter, no cream and also no chocolate.  So I had to turn to an old trusted recipe, maybe not the best chocolate cake ever, but dead easy and quick to make, and it has a lovely, moist texture.  Because of said shortages, ganache was not an option, nor the classic butter icing, so I used some Philadelphia cream cheese instead of butter plus some icing sugar, cocoa, vanilla and plain yogurt and made quite a nice icing.  Unfortunately I won't be able to share that recipe, seeing that I just followed my taste buds!

But, here is the eggless chocolate cake recipe, so easy, a child can make it.  It will fill one oven tray or two 25cm round cake tins.

Sift together:

3 cups of flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1/3 a cup of cocoa

a pinch of salt

Whisk together:

2 cups boiling water

1 cup oil

2 teaspoons vanilla

1/5 cup of vinegar

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until combined.  Pour into a oven tray and bake for 20 minutes at 180 degrees.  Cool and top with your favorite icing.

Secrets and chocolate

There is one thing I really hate, and that is if someone tells me they have a secret recipe and are not prepared to share it.  I find it very rude, because I am convinced that these secret recipes were definitely not their own inventions.  If I could have a secret recipe, I think I would have chosen this one. 

A week or so ago I took out one of my first cooking books that I ever bought - Gastronomic adventures of the Two Fat Ladies.  Don't know if you remember them, Jennifer Paterson and Clarissa Dickson Wright, travelling around the United Kingdom in their motorcycle and sidecar.  Except for the chocolate cake, I haven't tried any of their recipes, but I cannot wait to discover more of their gastronomic adventures!

The recipe is called Adult Chocolate Cake, but seeing that it does not contain any flour, it is not really a cake, but more like a baked mousse and in their words it is outrageously rich and therefore highly recommendable.

I simplified the method slightly and also added blueberries as accompaniment and decoration.  You will find that the cake collapses slightly on cooling - don't be alarmed, it is supposed to happen, the addition of the fresh blueberries takes care of this.

225g good quality dark chocolate

225g butter, cut into small cubes

280g castor sugar

5 eggs

To serve:

1 punnet fresh blueberries

icing sugar for dusting

Grease and line a cake tin of 22 - 24 cm in diameter and 5 cm deep. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

Break the chocolate into a glass bowl, add the butter and set over a saucepan of barely simmering water until melted.  Alternatively, melt on "defrost" in your microwave oven, stirring from time to time.  Remove from the heat an cool slightly.

In the meantime, whisk the eggs and sugar until very frothy and foamy.  Gently fold the melted chocolate/butter into the egg mixture. 

Pour the mixture into the cake tin and place it into another oven tin with enough water to come two thirds up the side of the cake tin.

Bake for 1 hour, then let it cool completely in the water filled tin, then refrigerate overnight.

When ready to eat, run a knife around the edge of the tin and with a good thump, turn the cake out.  Pile with blueberries and sieve over some icing sugar.  Serve with cream or ice cream.  It's a killer!

Gooey chocolate stack

I heard a story that not all Nigella Lawson's recipes are really tested and that some of them do not even work.  I only own one of her books - How to be a domestic goddess.  I've only made a handful of her recipes, but so far, they all came out pretty good.

One that I found quite impressive is her Gooey Chocolate Stack.  It is a bit of work, but not complicated. 

The recipe will be enough for 8 - 10 people.

Meringue:

6 egg whites (I always use extra large eggs)

300g caster sugar

3 tablespoons cocoa

1 teaspoon vinegar

Filling:

6 egg yolks

100g caster sugar

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

2 tablespoons flour

350ml  full cream milk

250ml cream

100g good quality dark chocolate, chopped (try NoMU Chocolate Chunks)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Line three baking sheets with greaseproof paper and spray with non stick cooking spray. Mark a circle with diameter 20cm on each.  Prepare the meringue mixture (see Pavlova recipe), replacing the cornflour with the cocoa.  When adding the cocoa the mixture will become a little bit  more runny.  Divide equally between the three sheets and spread evenly.  Bake for 1 hour at 140 degrees.  Switch off the oven and leave to dry out and cool completely.  Keep in an airtight container  until ready to assemble.

There is one thing that I always use my microwave oven for and that is any kind of custard.  Heat the cream and milk until nearly boiling.  Blend the sugar, egg yolks, cocoa and flour until smooth.  Now add the heated milk/cream a little bit at a time, stirring continuously.  Return to the microwave and heat until the mixture starts to thinken from the sides, stir and repeat once more.  Add the chocolate and leave to melt for a few minutes, then stir through and add the vanilla.  Place into a sinkful of ice cold water and stir until cooled.  When completely cooled down, assemble the cake.  If you are making it in advance, refrigerate the filling, but remove from the fridge well in advance because it will become too thick when refrigerated.

Place one meringue disk on a serving platter, spread with a third of the filling.  Then carry on layering.  Decorate with chopped nuts or berries.