Chocolate Cake #chocolate #cake #comfortfood

Let's face it, some weeks call for chocolate cake. This is one of those weeks.  There's something comforting about baking, particularly baking a decadent chocolate cake with butter and chocolate icing. Sure you can bake a chocolate cake for a celebration but it is a great stress buster as well. Although perhaps it is a celebration of sorts.  I'm celebrating surviving the week.  As this is my place of "niceness and beauty" I won't go into the details, but suffice to say, I NEED chocolate cake.

I like to get everything ready before I start the baking.  Baking needs to be a lot more precise than cooking up a main course, where you can add this and add that depending on your taste and your mood.  Don't try a little bit of this and that with baking, you need to measure precisely.  Having said that, I always add less sugar than the recipe says and have never regretted it.  So there you go, contradicting what I just said.  Go figure.

For this cake recipe, you will need to put the oven on low - about 140 c fan force or 150 c for non-fan force.

And you will need to gather the following ingredients:
 200gm of chopped dark chocolate
1/4 cup of cocoa powder
250 gm of unsalted butter
1.5 cups of water
1.5 cups of caster sugar
1.25 cups of self raising flour
1/2 cup of plain flour
2 eggs
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

Line a spring form cake tin with baking paper.  I use the tin as a stencil, placing it on the baking paper and draw a line around the tin to guide the cut.  High tech.

 Melt butter and chocolate gently on low heat. Add water and sugar and stir to dissolve sugar.

Allow to cool slightly before pouring it into a mixing bowl. Sift flours and cocoa and add to chocolate mixture in the mixing bowl. Add eggs and vanilla essence.

Mix by hand or by electric mixture until very smooth.

Pour into cake tin and bake for about 1 and a quarter hours.  Test with skewer to make sure it is cooked.  Allow to cool slightly before removing from tin. NB, this is a moist cake and you have to expect cracking - but don't worry, it will be covered by delicious chocolate icing soon.

To make the icing, mix together 2 cups of icing sugar, half a cup of cocoa with half cup of soft or melted butter and churn.  Add a few drops of water to get the right consistency.   Spread on a completely cooled cake, cut and scoff.

Lovely with a hot cup of french earl grey tea or a magnum of champagne.