Thursday, September 17, 2009

Fight your demons when they start to show

I'm not good at this whole blogging thing, even my attempts at keeping a diary as a kid were lame .... It's hard to be totally honest when you know it could be used against you. Anyway, I'm going to post whatever takes my fancy.

Today a recipe.

My Chocolate Cake.

Ingredients:
1 & 1/2 cups of Self Raising Flour
1 cup Sugar
1/2 teaspoon Bi-carb Soda
1/2 cup Cocoa Powder
125g (4oz) Margarine
dash of Vanilla Essence
2 Eggs
1 cup Milk

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius or 350 Fahrenheit. Mix dry ingredients. Add the wet ingredients. Mix thoroughly. Pour mixture into a greased baking tin. Bake in the oven for approximately 40 minutes.

I like this recipe because it's easy to make and really tasty. My mum used this recipe to make birthday cakes for my sister and I when we were kids. FYI, I make it the best!!

Some helpful hints from one whiz in the kitchen to another.
  • When greasing the tin, I like to line the bottom with baking paper. It makes it easier to remove the cake later.
  • You can always make the cake more interesting by adding chocolate chips or mixed berries or fruits before baking, I like to add mixed berries and turn them into muffins.
  • Before you take the cake out of the oven, check it is cooked the whole way through. An easy way is to poke a skewer through the middle of the cake. If it is "clean" (no mixture, crumbs are acceptable) as you pull it out, you have yourself a baked cake.
  • You can ice the cake when its cool or dust with icing sugar and serve with ice cream. A simple tasty icing can be made by mixing icing sugar, cocoa powder and margarine. I don't have exact quantities, but when making icing always add the margarine or water or egg, even colouring a little at a time. You want a creamy consistency, not too runny or watery that it sides of the cake.
  • I'm lactose intolerant which can be such a pain, but substituting is easy. I use soy milk instead (can't even taste the difference) and a canola based margarine.

One last word of advice:

Never cook angry!!!

No comments:

Post a Comment