Chocolate cake

This is a family recipe for a luxurious cake that has a lovely moist texture, achieved by using lots of egg.

Ingredients

  • ¾ cup (200 ml) boiling water
  • ½ cup (125 ml) cocoa
  • 1¾ cup (450 ml) flour
  • 1¾ cup (450 ml) sugar (you can reduce it to 1 2/3 cup (400 ml) sugar)
  • 3 teaspoon (15 ml) baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon (5 ml) salt
  • ½ cup (125 ml) canola or rice oil (you can reduce it to 1/3 cup (90 ml) oil)
  • 7 extra large eggs
  • 1 teaspoon (5 ml) vanilla
  • 1 teaspoon (5 ml) cream of tartar

Method

  1. Mix boiling water and cocoa until smooth and let it cool down.
  2. Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt, in this order.
  3. Make a well in the dry ingredients. Add the canola or rice oil, egg yolks, cooled cocoa mixture, and vanilla.
  4. Mix until smooth.
  5. Whisk egg whites until stiff and then add cream of tartar. Fold into dough mixture.
  6. Turn batter into greased and lined tins. Use three 18 cm two 23 cm round pans, or a one large oven pan.
  7. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes at 180°C.
  8. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool.
  9. Use caramalised condensed milk as filling between the cakes, and butter icing (made from butter, cocoa and icing sugar) for the top of the cake.

If you want to, you can decorate it with Flake or grated Peppermint Crisp chocolate.

Notes

While the original recipe is by far the best tasting, you can reduce the oil and sugar a wee bit.