If you’ve got cake, girl, you’ve got friends
*** UPDATED to say it’s SELF RAISING FLOUR! Sorry! ***
After the day before yesterday’s cake baking revelations I meant to publish the revised recipe as part of that entry but I got distracted by proof reading etc., which is lucky because it would have still been wrong. Mum called me early yesterday morning to also admit that the recipe I have also calls for too much butter! Sabotage! I made another cake today and while it didn’t rock my world it’s slowly improving. I am thinking of moving on to another chocolate cake recipe which I can call my own. If anybody has any good recipes they feel keen to share, please do!
But due to popular demand, today I can provide for you the FULLY revised, spot-on chocolate cake recipe. Here it is:
Melt 85 grams (3 ounces) of butter.
Put in bowl (in order of appearance) with 1 cup of sifted self raising flour
1 cup of caster sugar
2 Tablespoons of cocoa (sifted) — not drinking chocolate, but real cocoa
2 cold eggs
dollop vanilla
pinch of salt
1/2 cup of whole cream milk
combine & beat 3 minutes
Cook for 45 minutes on 180°c
Clearly this is a very brief recipe… you will need to tip it out of the tin when it’s cooled a little and then ice it with something delicious.
Mum’s tips: If it’s a cold morning, warm the (preferably metal) mixing bowl with hot water and then dry before adding the butter. Use stale eggs. Use fresh self raising flour.
The cake recipe was given to my mum from Dad’s young cousin, who used to come and spend weekends away from boarding school with them back in the late 60s, early 70s. She used to cook this cake in Mum’s kitchen, cover it in cream and take it back for the school week. She told my mum “If you’ve got cake, girl, you’ve got friends.”
And just for fun, here are some photos from the family album of the cake in action.
This is my brother c. 1975 enjoying the cream on the top of the cake on a family picnic:
This is me, in our backyard in Adelaide, on my 10th birthday (showing off my new watch):
And here is Dad, Amelia and me in Mum and Dad’s kitchen on Amelia’s 1st birthday, almost five years ago – that must be a 1.5 sized cake because it sure looks huge:
It was Amelia’s first experience of cake! It looks as though she had about four bowls full.
And on that same occasion this is Mum pouring some kind of sparkling burgundy, probably saying “oh yes, definitely cook it for an hour, and definitely 3.5 grams of butter…” and I look very trusting (or drunk) but the cake was obviously good because we seem to have eaten it all.
And this is Lily from last month on her second birthday … just LOOK at that slice of cake! Sensational!
My mum had a special chocolate cake recipe too and it was always cooked in a ring tin as well. I remember two great aunties visiting and everyone talking about how much they were looking forward to The Cake. Slices were actually being put on plates when I wandered into the kitchen and saw that instead of a packet of Cadbury’s drinking chocolate left on the bench there was a same-sized packet of … gravox! We whipped the slices of beautifully iced gravy cake away just in time. Seeing your photos reminded me of it.
your cake saga has been making be laugh for days! thanks for sharing (the recipe and the funny stories)
your blog’s is really sweet and your art is so pretty ^^,
I’m loving those floral party hats that you and your mum are wearing….they’re just fabulous!
thanks for sharing your recipe … and your photos! It’s lovely to see the cake throughout the years :)I think the picture of your brother is my favourite; the colours and the round corners remind me of photos of when mum was pregnant with me and when I was a wee-tacker.
Hello, I’ve been enjoying your blog for a little while now and the tale of your cake has been entertaining, I could definitely relate to your frustration. Your photos today though just added to my enjoyment as it brought back fond memories of having birthday parties in our beautiful back yard in Adelaide also. Those were the days hey?
Oh man, oh man, Amelia is almost 6 and Lily is already 2?!? How is this possible? How time flies, etc.
It looks delicious. If only I hadn’t just started a diet, I would make it tonight!! I’ll be trying it out another time, however. And I can’t wait.With the cream on top and a child nearby (aka: your brother), I have a feeling it would be a big hit chez moi!
Must make cake! Looks so yummy! (love the hats, too)
Hee! I have been making your Mum’s choccy cake recipe for years, ever since you posted it the first time. It’s in my recipe folder, entitled ‘Loobylu’s Mum’s chocolate cake’. It’s such a great recipe, not only because it’s fast, but also because it doesn’t take a lot of butter so I usually have enough of everything just hanging around. I’ve also made it with walnuts and coconut *in it, so yummy!* separately, not together!
who doesn’t like choccy cake and best to start them young!!Sharon
Did you ever try “wacky cake”. If you google you will find tons of recipes. It is a chocolate cake that has no eggs in it. Very simple to make and “fool proof”….but it really is (and vegans love it too). If you use melted butter instead of oil it will have a richer taste. Try it….no sabotage involved.
OMG I laughed at the instructions being passed in the haze of a sparkling burgundy 😀 that explains a lot!Here’s my favourite choc cake recipe. No worries about temperature of the bowl, no mixers, no fuss, no sabotage. And it’s a gorgeous, rich, fudgy cake. It’s not the fluffy, light, tall cake for birthday parties, it’s a sod-it-I-want-a-choc-overdose kind of cake. I hope you like it.
Pre-heat your oven at 200C (400F). Line an 8 inch cake pan with parchment paper. If using a non-stick pan, you can just cut out a circle to line the bottom. In a microwave, on Low, melt 150g of butter with 200g of good quality dark chocolate. Be sure to do it slowly, blending with a spoon every 40 seconds or so. Add 200g of sugar, and let cool a little. Then add 4 eggs one by one, mixing well with a spoon after each one. Finally, add a rounded tablespoon of flour and mix well. Pour the dough in the pan. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Cool it down completely before cut it. Best served with some good vanilla ice cream.
By the way, lovely pictures, you have a lovely happy family, Claire.
Wow, Lily is already TWO?! I remember reading your blog when she was just a newborn. I guess a lot happened while your blog was on hiatus! 🙂
I’m excited about this recipe – I don’t normally cook (um, at all) but I’m going to give this a shot and surprise my wife 🙂 Plus I want a signature dish to bring places so the cake is now in consideration. THANK YOU for sharing. It sounds delicious.G
Thanks for the recipe, although I must say I never think extra butter in a cake will do anyone any harm.It’s also nice to see pictures, esp. of Lily! She’s about the same age as my little girl, Charlotte. It looks like they have similar tastes in cake, too. 🙂
just read through your cake-adventures.i found out that even though i manage to make any cake (no tryouts, just 1 go) it’s not me or my bowls but mostly the oven and how well you know it!
depending on the result i want or the type of pastry i make i switch from warm-heat oven to classic oven (i have both options).warm-heat is perfect for e.g. crumbles (you need to cook the inside) and classic oven is much better for cookies (less dry).
could it be it?
Ah! Love the pictures. It’s wonderful to have a family cake that’s been part of so many of your birthday parties.I’ve just copied some very old, handwritten family recipes into my PC and they were full of measurements such as “two handfuls of this” and “a thumb-size of that” and the killer — “5-cents worth of nutmeg”. Clearly the person writing it forgot to factor in inflation!
Was it an Australian thing? Getting your first watch for your tenth birthday? I still have mine.
mmmmmm a diary of a cake, i love it!cant wait to give it a whirl!
Okay, now I cannot believe that Lily is now two years of age. I am sure it was only yesterday that I started reading your blogs and you had only just brought Lily into the world. Where did that big girl come from!?!Hey maybe we could all do a ‘share a recipe, share a story’ blog entry once a month. The idea being if a person shared a recipe with other bloggers there would need to be a special story to go with it. Which is pretty much what you have already started with this chocolate cake. And if only done once a month, there would be no pressure to keep coming up with recipes to add – only the special recipes. I will do one this weekend, me thinks.
Thanks for sharing! I’ll be giving it a go, and I love the family pics! My Mum uses a recipe that looks similar, I think she got it from an Aunt – I’ll be digging it out to compare the quantities. I know that melted butter is the final ingredient in her cake though.
Nigella Lawsons chocolate loaf cake, its a cake, but oh so close to being a pudding and super chocolately. Seeing both Lily and Amelia scoff down two chocolate macarons each I think they need a cake with a serious chocolate hit to satisfy them : )
I’ll also be having a go at this gorgeous recipe. I love the update – I’m sure your mum would too.
My mother’s secret chocolate cake was a similar recipe, however her’s called for the dry ingredients to be sifted together and placed in the bowl first, then add the wet ingredients (including the melted butter) and beat. As easy as a cake mix but way nicer.
Thanks for sharing the cake recipe, definitely going to give it a try.@Jo, LOL at the Gravy Cake. Please tell me you tried it? I wouldn’t have been able to resist!
Thanks for the recipe! I had read about your revelation the other day and was secretly hoping you would share the secret recipe. Can’t wait to try it1 Here is my favorite chocolate cake recipe, it’s the one from the back of the Hershey’s cocoa box. If you can get your hands on dark chocolate cocoa – you’ll die of pleasure when eating it…http://www.hersheys.com/recipes/recipes/detail.asp?id=184&page=1&per=10&keyword=chocolate%20cake
I am going to give this recipe a go on the miserable cold week-end coming up. I love the photographic history of the chocolate cake. So sweet.
I have an easy chocolate cake recipe that sounds pretty similar, except that it uses brown sugar and softened rather than melted butter. And it’s as easy as making a packet cake.The recipe is here.. http://muppinstuff.typepad.com/eater/2007/05/easy_chocolate_.html
Thank you for sharing the recipe, I will definitely give it a go!
I made it! It’s indeed a crowd pleaser cake, very tasty, very moist and fluffy. In my gas oven it took 35 minutes to cook. Thank you Claire and Claire’s Mum for the recipe. 🙂
I’m planning to give your cake a go, & in return i’m offering up my mum’s (& now mine too) all occasions chocolate cake. I think it came from the women’s weekly, circa mid-eighties, and has made frequent appearances ever since. It’s not as quick and easy as your mum’s but yummy and not too rich so good for little ones. I like it with cream & strawberries in the middle but sometimes I make it as cupcakes…mmmm cake!!1/2 cup cocoa1/2 cup water185g butter1 1/2 cups caster sugar3 eggs2 cups SR flour1/4 tsp bi-carb soda3/4 cup milk1 tbsp vanillaStir together cocoa & water. Cream butter & sugar. Add eggs one at a time. Sift flour & bi-carb and add in two batches, alternating with milk & vanilla. Fold in cocoa mixture. Pour into a lined 22cm round tim and bake 30-35 mins at 180 degrees, or until it tests clean with a skewer. (you can check your oven temp with one of those little oven thermometers from the supermarket!)
Sorry for the super long comment. Thanks for the recipe – i’m off to do some baking!
hey claire, just wanted to tell you that i made your mum’s chocolate cake on friday night for a couple of friends who came around for dinner and wine and Olympics-watching.the all round consensus was that it is a very decent cake, especially considering the ease of effort and simplicity of ingredients. HOWEVER i would raise the point that to me it was no way near chocolate-y enough and next time i will be doubling the cocoa and perhaps adding chocolate bits in too.
🙂