When you frequently wake up at 6 a.m. in the morning to bake a cake before you are off to work, then you are definitely a passionate cook!
Well, this is me. 6 a.m., 7 a.m., 10 p.m., you name it! You just never know when this rush takes over me and all I want to do is sift, mix, and pop the batter into the oven. The hard work always pays off with a sweet smell, a moist taste, and warm smiles all around the house.
I have just come back from a lovely vacation back home that was filled with a lot of beautiful "rendez-vous" sessions with close family and friends and oh boy how many cakes I got to bake! That is exactly what I love about cooking and especially baking; I always get to share my simple food creations with the people I love and care about , and I must admit, I do love the compliments and cherish the constructive feedback for a better piece of food art each time.
What was even exciting was that I also got the pleasure of making my childhood best friend's birthday cake.
After a lot of thinking on which cake to surprise her with, I decided to go with the safest option given it was going to be a big crowd because who doesn't like chocolate right?!
So here I share with you a very sweet recipe for a super MOIST chocolate cake, and believe me it is super MOIST as you will see for yourself. To complement it, I will also share the chocolate (with a slight twist of espresso) frosting. Enjoy!
Ingredients
Chocolate Cake
1 & 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 cups white sugar
1 cup cocoa powder
1 & 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 & 1/2 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
2 medium eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup canola oil
2 tsp vanilla powder
1 cup boiling water
Chocolate Fudge Frosting
1 cup of cooking cream
8 Tbsp unsalted butter
4 Tbsp light corn syrup (if unavailable you can make it yourself check note below)
2 tsp of instant coffee powder (I used Nescafe; you can skip for kids)
460g (16 oz) semi-sweet chocolate chips
Steps
Chocolate Cake
1) Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius
2) Grease with butter then sprinkle with flour two 9" round pans (23 cm)
3) Mix together the first 6 dry ingredients (flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder and soda, and salt) with a spoon
4) Add the eggs, milk, canola oil, and vanilla powder to the above mixture and mix with an electric mixer on medium speed.
5) Lastly add the cup of boiling water. Batter will be runny (not hard) but that is OK.
6) Pour batter evenly into two greased pans
7) Bake the cake for 30 minutes or slightly more until toothpick comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then you can remove to a wire rack and let cool completely before adding any frosting.
Chocolate Fudge Frosting
1) In a small pan, heat the cooking cream, butter, corny syrup, and coffee powder until hot but before boiling
2) Put the chocolate chips in heat proof bowl & pour the hot cream mixture on it. Let stand for 2 minutes before stirring. Stir until you get a creamy chocolate texture.
3) Let it rest for 10 to 15 minutes before frosting the cake
Assembly
1) In a serving tray or cake stand, put the first cake bottom side up.
2) Put a small amount of the frosting and even out with a spatula
3) Put the second cake again bottom side up.
4) Cover the entire cake with the chocolate frosting. Clean the spatula and again even out the frosting on he cake clean to get a smooth texture.
Decorate with your choice of chocolate sprinkles or colored sugar.
Note: To make light corn syrup at home, dissolve 1 cup of sugar in a 1/4 cup of hot water. Then use the 4 Tbsp for your recipe or you can even use honey as a substitute to light corn syrup.
