Let the Chocolate Ooze and Watch the Men Come Drooling (Cakes)

Member Name: hellyphant

Product:	Cakes
Date:	07/08/02 (1271 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Mouth wateringly delicious, easy to make, satisfying, men/women will be clamouring at your door

Disadvantages: Not too good on the calorie front

I used to be the queen of cake making. Every Sunday it was the same. After lunch, I threw my parents and sister out of the kitchen, cranked up the Top 40 on the radio, and set to work.

Sometimes, nature unfortunately called, and I had to leave the kitchen unattended for a few minutes. Invariably, on my return, I'd find my sister and her friend from down the road sheepishly sneaking past me with chocolate smeared round their mouths. We really needed a lock on that kitchen door!

Everyone loved my cakes, not just greedy 7 year olds. Some people even paid me money for the privilege of eating a slice. (I don't lie.)

I found baking cakes almost therapeutic, a form of relaxation before starting on the awful Maths homework I'd been putting off since Friday night.

My chocolate cake didn't come from a recipe book. It came from tips I learnt from various people - my cookery teacher at school, my granny, and my mum. It also changed and improved on each attempt, as I discovered myself what tasted good.



~*~*~*~*Ingredients~*~*~*~*~*

8oz slightly salted butter
8oz self-raising flour
5oz caster sugar
3 / 4 tablespoons of cocoa powder
4 eggs
(optional - a teaspoon of cinnamon)


~*~*~*~Getting started~*~*~*~

Get your mum's apron on, roll your sleeves up and lock any children in the cellar.

Turn up the oven to Gas Mark 5

Grease two round cake tins. Maybe you have your own ways of greasing, but I personally can't stand the thought of lard (which many recipe books seem to advise you to use). Instead, I just use whatever happens to be in the fridge - marg or butter. Make sure you use a generous amount and grease all over, otherwise you'll have problems getting the cake out.

~*~*~*~Instructions~*~*~*~

Weigh your BUTTER (8oz remember) - lining the scale bowl with a piece of greaseproof paper to stop the butter sticking t
o the base.

Cut butter into small pieces and empty into large mixing bowl (If you're in a rush or are lazy, you may want to just throw all the ingredients into the food processor, but I always find it far more satisfying to do it myself, by hand)

Remove the greaseproof paper from the scale bowl and weigh the SUGAR (5oz).

Add sugar to mixing bowl, and with a fork lightly mix into the butter until the mixture becomes soft and fluffy and very very yellow. (How surprising!) This may take some time, and your wrist will probably ache, but it's worth it, and if you have the radio on, you can always sing along to a tacky Top 40 song and beat to the beat (as it were)

Now sieve the SELF RAISING FLOUR (8oz) as you weigh it. Try and hold the sieve as high as you can without loosing half the flour around the kitchen. This will make the cake deliciously and luxuriously light.

Add the flour to the sugar and butter mixture and gently, with a wooden spoon, fold in. What on earth do I mean by 'fold in', you may be wondering. Maybe you're not as thick as me, but it did take me a while to figure it out. Basically it means, don't just grab the spoon and stir vigorously. Instead, gently insert (!) the spoon into the centre of the mixture, and gently (again) bring your spoon to the edge of the bowl, bringing a dollop of mixture with you, and then, literally fold it over. Oh, it's difficult to put into words. You're better off practising yourself.

When all the ingredients are suitably blended in, sieve 3 or 4 tablespoons of COCOA POWDER into the mixture. Use your judgement - you want your mixture to be a good, strong brown colour, but not too dark or it'll taste bitter. Remember to resist the temptation of tasting a spoonful of cocoa powder. It's hot chocolate powder that tastes good straight from the pot - cocoa powder DOES NOT. It is revolting and will make you feel quite ill.

Now o
nto the final ingredient - the EGGS. Crack four of them into a small bowl and whisk with a fork until fluffy. Then add a little bit at a time to the cake mixture. It's very important that you don't add it all at once, as this will make it very difficult to stir and blend properly.

The mixture will slurp quite juicily as you mix it. Very satisfying. Mix for quite a while, longer than you think you should. The more you mix at this stage, the lighter your cake will be.

At this point, you should be just about ready to transfer the mixture into the cake tins. Make sure you distribute equal amounts to each tin, smooth over with a knife, and into the oven they go, slap bang in the centre. Shut the door, and don't you dare open it again for at least 35 minutes as you may disrupt the rising process. And that would be lethal.

Your cake shouldn't take more than 40 minutes to cook, but if you've got a bit of a dodgy oven (like ours where the door doesn't shut properly), it may take longer. To test whether your cake is ready, stick a knife through the centre. If the knife is clean when taken out, everything is hunky-dory and the cake can be removed from the oven. If however, the knife has remains of sticky mixture on it, you'll need to leave it in the oven a little longer.

Once ready, leave the cake in the tins for 10 minutes or so, then gently ease them onto a cooling rack. (Obviously if you?re greedy and feel like really indulging yourself, you'll be stuffing your face at this stage. Freshly baked hot cake is very very difficult to resist)

~*~*~*~The Icing~*~*~*~

Now I don't always bother with icing. I don't like my cakes too sweet and gooey. I also like to dip them in my tea, and icing just gets in the way of all that. But if you just HAVE to have your toppings, here are a few varieties I have tried and tested, and have to say, taste pretty damn good.

**Chocolate (no 1)
**

Yes, why not indulge yourself and add even more of a chocolatey flavour to your cake. Buy a pack of dark chocolate (and yes, it MUST be dark) and melt it. The best way to do this is to break the chocolate into small pieces and place in a glass bowl, which, in turn is placed upon a saucepan of boiling water. NEVER put chocolate directly into the saucepan. You will ruin it. Stir until the chocolate has sufficiently melted and the mixture resembles a smooth paste. Take off the heat immediately.

Ensure your cake has fully cooled down, and then spread the delicious melted chocolate over the top, and in the middle too if you want.

Don't worry if there's still chocolate left in the bowl at this stage. I'll happily come round to help you lick the bowl clean.

**Chocolate (no 2)**

A little more tricky this one. You'll need 2 oz of icing sugar (sieved), 1oz of butter and 3 1/2 oz of milk cooking chocolate (melted). Mix it all together (and I'll allow you to be vigorous this time!). Dollop over cake, as thick as you like and spread to form a smooth paste. Now the bit I always liked best about this kind of icing is that it allows you to be creative and make various patterns in the chocolate. You don't even need any special equipment, just a fork and a fairly steady hand. You could make a swirly pattern, or criss-crosses, well anything you want really. And if you want your cake to look extra specially pretty, decorate it with a few colourful smarties for the perfect birthday look.

**Sugar**

This is a very simple icing, which basically just involves sprinkling a thin layer of icing sugar over the top of the cake. And that's it. Now even the worst cook in the world could make a mess of that. Could they?


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Your cake is now ready. The smell of chocolate has filled your house, has wafted down the street, made neighbours stop dead in th
eir tracks, caused drivers to crash into lamp posts, and brought a flock of tall, dark handsome (and very desperate) young men to your doorstep...You'd better let them all in. And tell them it's a fiver a bite.

Have fun!

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