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18/04/2010 13:52:00

Everyday Chocolate Cake

This is based on the recipe given in the Dorling Kindersley Kids' First Cook Book, although our family has cooked it hundreds of times and somewhat changed the method.

 

We basically chuck everything in, and it always comes out well. I like that it has that slightly-stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth-ness about it but it isn't too rich, so you can put it with other things like ice cream for a pudding, eat it plain, ice it or fill it, and it doesn't end up too sickly. It is a huge favourite with our kids, their friends and the school cake bake.

 

 

Method

The original method suggests you cream the butter and sugar and then add the wet and dry in small batches. But we make this so often we tend to lob it all in. Also it's not the kind of cake where you want it to be light and fluffy, so the gradual approach doesn't really affect the result. But if you want to be careful with it, by all means.

 

Today Anna made the cake with her friend Freya. They started by mixing the butter and sugar together. The butter needs to have been left out at room temperature or have a quick blast in the microwave in small cubes so it is nice and soft. If you use caster sugar it's a bit smoother but we have made it with every kind of white and golden sugar and it never seems to matter.

 

 

Then they added the eggs, the milk and the lemon juice and mixed it up. Then added the flour, bicarb and cocoa. If you add half the dry ingredients and stir a bit before adding the other half, you get less flour flying around the air. Or you can add it all in one go and start off stirring carefully. Then you're just stirring until you have a smooth mixture without major lumps.

 

 

The original recipe asks you to bake the cake as one large cake at 180 degrees for about 40-35 minutes. This definitely works well and if you want a plain cake or want to decorate the top, this is the best way. However we often cook it in two smaller sandwich tins for 25 mins and then put buttercream and jam in the middle. Today, because we were making it for fun, we lined it and iced it and then the girls totally sprinkled it to within an inch of its life, so it was a super sweet treat!

 

 

Because Freya was taking half the cake home for her family to have for pudding, I cut the cake in half so that they could each decorate their own half. I left it pushed together though so less sprinkles disappeared down the middle! This was the finished result.

 

The Verdicts

When asked to rate the cake, where 1 is 'never eat this again' and 10 is 'I want to eat this every day' the girls' verdicts were:

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22/04/2010 10:15:00 by grace and favour

They certainly look like they are enjoying the cake mix!