This is my favourite chocolate cake recipe. I make it regularly and it’s always a hit.
Start by pre-heating your oven to 150C. You’ll need a large mixing bowl, weighing scales, a measuring jug, measuring spoons, a wooden spoon and a whisk.
Ingredients: 6 tablespoons cocoa powder
350ml boiling water
350g sugar (caster, granulated or brown are all fine)
175ml oil
410g self-raising flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
- Mix the hot water and cocoa powder to form a smooth paste.
- Add oil and sugar to cocoa paste.
- Add self-raising flour and baking powder. Mix to get rid of all lumps – make sure you stir in one direction only. Changing direction will knock out the air and impede rising. Your mixture should reach dropping consistency where it falls slowly off the spoon. Add a little more water if it’s on the thick side.
- Pour into a 9 inch diameter springform tin, 2.5 inches tall, greased and lined with baking paper or two smaller tins of equal size. (Poundland sells pre-cut baking paper circles which are great!)
- Bake for an hour and 10 minutes in the pre-heated oven. A toothpick will come out clean when it’s done. Leave it in the oven a bit longer if needed.
- Leave to cool completely before removing from the tin or it will crumble.
- If the top is cracked or overly rounded, just trim off the top and turn it over. This will give you a nice neat flat top.
- Fill and ice with a chocolate buttercream or ganache, which you can find under Icing Section.
This does make a big cake. If you want to make a smaller cake, reduce the quantities by half and use a smaller tin. If you’d like to make a double layered cake, use 300g sugar, 300g ml water, 150 ml oil, 355g flour and 4 tablespoons cocoa. Divide the batter between two tins and bake for 20-25 minutes at 180C.
For a batch of 24 cupcakes, use 250g sugar, 250ml water, 125ml oil, 3 tbsp cocoa and 300g flour. Bake for 7 minutes at 180C. It may not look like much batter in the muffin papers but they do rise and will be plenty tall enough once iced.
Cake By Deva 