Saturday, December 4, 2010

Chocolate Cake


I have been so down lately that life took its toll on me. Seriously. I feel so worn out that it affects my mood everyday. Or maybe it's because I am sleep deprived. The other day I stayed up all night to finish my lab report and watched El Clasico. But during the last 10 minutes of the match I couldn't get my eyes to open wide so I went to get a nap for about 2 hours before I had to get up and attend the 5 hours class.


Unfortunately, the class went on for 9 hours ! Well, it wasn't a lecture (THANK GOD!) but we had to do an experiment on DNA fingerprinting. Gosh, that was time consuming ! When I'm tired I can be a bitch. And that was what I think my friends think of me that day. I was being very combative and not really paying attention to the situation. And it doesn't help to have a few people to being combative towards me also. But I managed to keep my temper down and not lash out to them.


When things gets pretty ugly for me I always feel the need to consume chocolate. I am still on the verge of lasshing out to people but to make it go away I think I better have some comfort food. Hence, this Perfectly Chocolate Chocolate Cake according to Hershey's website.




You can see the frosting was a mess ! Seriously, it took me quite a while to get the hang of frosting the cake. But as you can see, I failed miserably. There's a lot to learn.




Before frosting it is advisable to even out the top of the cake and the sides. I just did the top. The sides I totally forgot. In the end, the cake was quite hard to frost. And there's even loopholes around the cake. I tried to cover with the frosting but unfortunately, the frosting was not enough. There you have it. My "Perfectly Chocolate Chocolate Cake".


What matters most is the taste, and the cake live up to its name. I can taste the rich chocolaty flavour. The frosting is sweet, perfect for the cake, as the cake was not so sweet. It's a perfect combination !




Enjoy !



So the ingredients are...

  • 2 cups sugar ( I processed my sugar in the food processor to make it into fine texture )
  • 3/4 cups Hershey's Cocoa
  • 1-1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1-1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup vegetable oil ( I used olive oil )
  • 1 cup boiling water
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1-3/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp vanilla essence

Frosting
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/4 up Hershey's Cocoa
  • 1/4 cup butter ( I used 7 tbsp )
  • 1/4 cup milk
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence ( I omitted this as I finished mine )


Method...

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees C. Grease 3 x 8 inch round baking pan. ( I only have 1 baking pan so I had to wait for quite a long time to bake 3 cakes. )

2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil, vanilla essence; beat on medium speed of mixer for 2 minutes. ( I processed all the dry ingredients in the food processor before adding wet ingredients. I beat the mixture using rubber spatula. ) Stir in boiling water; the batter will be thin. Pour batter into prepared pans.

3. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until wooden pick nserted in center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost.

4. Make the frosting while cake is cooling. Mix all the ingredients and bring it to boil for 1 minute while constantly stirring. Set aside to cool partially. Beat until achieve spreading consistency. ( The frosting was not sufficient to frost 3 layers cake generously. You might want to double up the ingredients. )

1 comment:

AZ said...

Thank you for your kindness. I appreciate that. :)