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Not many cakes, but plenty of dinners.
Thursday 26 June 2008
Tuesday 27 November 2007
Saturday 24 November 2007
Chocolate cake
How to bake a chocolate cake in several easy steps.
Now with illustrations (i.e. picture heavy).Simply because I thought my first post here should be of something tasty.
The official recipe.
Because my parents didn't have anything vanilla, not even the sucky vanilla-flavoured sugar which probably hasn't seen a vanilla pod in it's entire life and is the only vanilla-like thing you can get here without finding a foodie speciality shop, I used cinnamon. Which is very tasty as well, and everyone liked the cake so I don't believe that bit is too essential.
The rest is, though.
Things you'll need
Ingredients. Combined, these will make life good.
Kitchen stuff. Cake pan, bowl, U.S. measuring cups and spoons.
An oven.
I suspect my family doesn't get why I think their oven is funny.
What you have to do:
Pre-heat the oven. 180C, 350F if you live somewhere that hasn't hopped on the Metric train yet. I'm not sure what specific oven function to use, so I just went with the first one. Worked well enough.
Grease the cake pan.
Start with the dry ingredients.
Measure a cup of flour, chuck it in the bowl. Times three. Use basic flour, not the self-rising kind. You'll get a good rise with the baking soda and vinegar, don't worry.
Measure a cup of sugar, chuck it in the bowl. Times two.
Measure a tablespoon of cocoa, chuck it in the bowl. Times six. I tend to use a very liberal six (heaped tablespoons, seven instead of six, that sort of thing) because I'm just that into chocolate.
Measure a teaspoon of salt, chuck it in the bowl. Times one.
Measure a teaspoon of baking soda, chuck it in the bowl. Times two.
Canelle moulu.
Chuck some in the bowl. I have no exact measurement for this, I just had fun with it. You can't go all that wrong with cinnamon as far as I'm concerned, so knock yourself out.
You'll end up with something looking like this.
Mix it up for a bit, making it an even, light-brown bowl of powdery goodness. The colour will depend at least in part on the colour of sugar you use, so don't worry if it's a bit light. It'll turn a delicious dark brown in the oven.
Now for liquids.
Fill a cup with water, chuck it in the bowl. Times two.
Fill a 1/4 cup with vegetable oil. Times three. Best use a fairly neutral oil, like sunflower or soya or something. Somehow I don't think olive oil would taste all that great in a chocolate cake.
You end up with something looking like this.
Stir it for a bit to properly combine the dry with the wet and kill all clumpy bits.
Measure a tablespoon of vinegar, chuck it in the bowl. I used apple cider vinegar this time because that's what my parents had, but I've used white vinegar before and that worked just fine as well.
SCIENCE!
Once more.
More SCIENCE!
Chemistry in action here, people. They should do this stuff in schools.
Stir it for a bit again.
Get the cake pan.
Pour your science experiment in the cake pan.
Bung it in the oven. Turn off the oven after about thirty minutes but leave the cake in to bake some more. The oven will stay warm for a good while still.
You can take it out whenever, I think. I left to visit my gran after I'd instructed my mum and sister to turn off the oven when the alarm went off, and it was left in there until I'd returned with my gran for dinner.
The result:
Cake!
Now go eat it.
And share, people. This is a big cake, and a tasty one. Share it and people will love you and give you nice compliments.
I'm not entirely sure, but I suspect the cake tastes better if you don't eat it right out of the oven. The next day is perfect. And if you do that, you get your house to smell like chocolate cake all day. That's good, too. I've no idea how it tastes more than a day or two after because I've never had one last that long.
You can put icing and a whole lot of other crap on it should you so desire, but this basic, simple cake is pretty damn yummy all on it's own without other flavours messing with it. I once had it with soyatoo, which was nice enough and made it look like a proper, fancy cake, but kind of diluted the chocolate-y flavour and didn't really add that much.
Now with illustrations (i.e. picture heavy).Simply because I thought my first post here should be of something tasty.
The official recipe.
Because my parents didn't have anything vanilla, not even the sucky vanilla-flavoured sugar which probably hasn't seen a vanilla pod in it's entire life and is the only vanilla-like thing you can get here without finding a foodie speciality shop, I used cinnamon. Which is very tasty as well, and everyone liked the cake so I don't believe that bit is too essential.
The rest is, though.
Things you'll need
Ingredients. Combined, these will make life good.
Kitchen stuff. Cake pan, bowl, U.S. measuring cups and spoons.
An oven.
I suspect my family doesn't get why I think their oven is funny.
What you have to do:
Pre-heat the oven. 180C, 350F if you live somewhere that hasn't hopped on the Metric train yet. I'm not sure what specific oven function to use, so I just went with the first one. Worked well enough.
Grease the cake pan.
Start with the dry ingredients.
Measure a cup of flour, chuck it in the bowl. Times three. Use basic flour, not the self-rising kind. You'll get a good rise with the baking soda and vinegar, don't worry.
Measure a cup of sugar, chuck it in the bowl. Times two.
Measure a tablespoon of cocoa, chuck it in the bowl. Times six. I tend to use a very liberal six (heaped tablespoons, seven instead of six, that sort of thing) because I'm just that into chocolate.
Measure a teaspoon of salt, chuck it in the bowl. Times one.
Measure a teaspoon of baking soda, chuck it in the bowl. Times two.
Canelle moulu.
Chuck some in the bowl. I have no exact measurement for this, I just had fun with it. You can't go all that wrong with cinnamon as far as I'm concerned, so knock yourself out.
You'll end up with something looking like this.
Mix it up for a bit, making it an even, light-brown bowl of powdery goodness. The colour will depend at least in part on the colour of sugar you use, so don't worry if it's a bit light. It'll turn a delicious dark brown in the oven.
Now for liquids.
Fill a cup with water, chuck it in the bowl. Times two.
Fill a 1/4 cup with vegetable oil. Times three. Best use a fairly neutral oil, like sunflower or soya or something. Somehow I don't think olive oil would taste all that great in a chocolate cake.
You end up with something looking like this.
Stir it for a bit to properly combine the dry with the wet and kill all clumpy bits.
Measure a tablespoon of vinegar, chuck it in the bowl. I used apple cider vinegar this time because that's what my parents had, but I've used white vinegar before and that worked just fine as well.
SCIENCE!
Once more.
More SCIENCE!
Chemistry in action here, people. They should do this stuff in schools.
Stir it for a bit again.
Get the cake pan.
Pour your science experiment in the cake pan.
Bung it in the oven. Turn off the oven after about thirty minutes but leave the cake in to bake some more. The oven will stay warm for a good while still.
You can take it out whenever, I think. I left to visit my gran after I'd instructed my mum and sister to turn off the oven when the alarm went off, and it was left in there until I'd returned with my gran for dinner.
The result:
Cake!
Now go eat it.
And share, people. This is a big cake, and a tasty one. Share it and people will love you and give you nice compliments.
I'm not entirely sure, but I suspect the cake tastes better if you don't eat it right out of the oven. The next day is perfect. And if you do that, you get your house to smell like chocolate cake all day. That's good, too. I've no idea how it tastes more than a day or two after because I've never had one last that long.
You can put icing and a whole lot of other crap on it should you so desire, but this basic, simple cake is pretty damn yummy all on it's own without other flavours messing with it. I once had it with soyatoo, which was nice enough and made it look like a proper, fancy cake, but kind of diluted the chocolate-y flavour and didn't really add that much.
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