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| My cake next to the the box where my microwave cake tin came in. |
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| Close up shot of the crumb. |
1/4 C water
3/4 C castor sugar
3/4 C butter (~ 170g) ... can use oil also, but it won't smell like butter cake
1/2 C milk or evaporated milk (richer)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence & 1 T rum (optional)
Dry Ingredients
1/2 C cocoa (I use only Hershey's ... recipe doesn't work with some other cocoas)
1 C cake flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
Method
Put the water & sugar into a small pan. Heat gently till the sugar is dissolved. Add butter and heat till dissolved. Turn off the flame. Stir in milk and vanilla. By now, the mixture should be a bit cooler so it is safe to add the eggs (if the liquid is too hot, the eggs will scramble). Stir in the eggs with a fork till well combined.
Sift Dry Ingredients into a bowl. Make a well & stir in the warm liquid gradually with a fork or wire whisk until well mixed. Actually, I often don't even sift if the flour doesn't look lumpy. I put all the dry stuff into a large (1 L) measuring jug - because it is tall & narrow - and use a dinner fork to mix up the flour & sugar & press out any clumps. Then I add wet mix in 3 - 4 lots, whisking vigorously with a fork between additions till smooth.
No need to grease the plastic cake tin. Pour in the mixture and microwave on HIGH for 4 mins. Wait for a minute before removing from the microwave oven, and turn out onto a wire rack to cool.
NOTE:
If you don't have this special cake tin, any plastic disposable microwaveable container of suitable size will do.
Instead of microwaving, you can STEAM this batter. Use a regular tin which is greased or lined - just be aware that the cake will rise to twice the height. Cover the top loosely with foil (to prevent water dripping on it) and steam this on a rack over medium heat for 45 minutes.
In an earlier experiment, I used only 1/2 C oil & 1/2 C milk. The cake cooked in just 3 minutes but was a wee bit dry though still pretty nice. To remedy a dryish cake: split it into 3 layers, sprinkle each layer with sugar water (2 T sugar + 2 T water + optional 2 T alcohol like kirsch for Black Forest Cake) and then sandwich & cover it with fresh cream / chocolate ganache / frosting etc.
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Low Fat, Low Sugar Chocolate Fudge Frosting (a la Lana Cake House style)
This quantity is for the above 18am diameter cake, split into 2. I'm pleased to say (ahem) that this is entirely my own concoction :-)
Ingredients:
1.5 C water
1/3 C sugar
3g agar strips
My pack of agar strips was 30g - I cut it into 5 equal portions, ie, 6g each using the "agaration" aka eye-ball method. 3g is half of 1 portion. I read online to use 10g - 15g of agar per 1 L (4 C) of liquid + 50g (4 T) of sugar. Another site says 25g of agar strips to 1 - 1.5 L of liquid. I guess 10g of agar strips will set 2C - 4C of liquid, to varying degrees of firmness.
4 T - 6T cocoa (to taste)
3 T evaporated milk
1 T butter
Slurry
2 T cornflour + 2 T water
Method:
Place cool water in a pot. Wash agar strips, cut it into small pieces, and soak in the pot of water for 10 mins until softened. Bring the water to the boil, add sugar, and stir until sugar and agar strips are dissolved. Add the cocoa and evaporated milk. Stir to dissolve cocoa. I found that there were lumpy bits of cocoa which refused to dissolved. At this stage, you might want to strain the mixture before returning it to the pot, but I simply used a fork to remove what large cocoa lumps there were.
Mix the cornstarch slurry well and add to the pot. Stir until mixture is thick (I like using a flat-edged silicon spatula - wide contact point with pot bottom means less chance of things getting scorched). How thick? When you lift out your spoon / spatula, it leaves a distinct trail. Stir in a tablespoon of butter. Turn off the fire and leave this mixture to cool. For the impatient, you can wrap a layer of wet kitchen paper around the pot so that it will cool faster. As it cools, the mixture will continue to thicken (agar sets at room temperature). Stir it every now and then. After 20 - 30 mins, it's about just the right gloopiness enough to use.
Split the cake into 2. Sandwich the layers with about 1/4 of the frosting. Use a spatula to apply the remainder over the top & sides of the cake. Refrigerate so that the frosting will set firmly.
If you like the frosting to be really dark-coloured, add more cocoa or a bit of chocolate emulco.
Chocolate Pudding
Use this recipe to make chocolate pudding that is somewhat similar to Marigold chocolate pudding. Simply spoon into jelly molds and chill.
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Spongy Chocolate Cake
I think Lana's very soft chocolate cake is made by the "chiffon" style. I tried making it, but it came out a little lop-sided due to uneven rising & shrinkage (typical with chiffon cakes, I guess that's why chiffons should be baked in a tube tin). I suppose it won't be so obvious with a thick coat of fudge frosting!
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| Soft & spongy ... & lop-sided |
3 egg yolks
1 - 2 T castor sugar
2 T milk
2 T corn oil
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp chocolate emulco (optional)
Ingredients B:
5 T cake flour
2 T cocoa
Pinch of salt
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Ingredients C:
3 egg whites
3 T sugar
Pinch of cream of tartar
Method:
Ingredients A: Beat together manually with a wire whisk till well-mixed (less than a minute).
Ingredients B: Sift into egg yolk mixture and stir till well combined.
Ingredients C: Whisk egg whites with cream of tartar till frothy (~ 1 minute with hand-held electric whisk). Add in the sugar and whisk on maximum speed until meringue is stiff (another 2-3 minutes).
Using a silicon spatula, stir a little of the meringue into the flour mixture to lighten it. Then in 2 - 3 lots, quickly fold in the rest of the meringue into the flour mixture, taking care to scoop up batter from the bottom of bowl. It's ok to leave a few white streaks rather than deflate the meringue by over-mixing. Bang the bowl on the counter to release large bubbles then pour the batter into the tin.
Microwave on HIGH for 3m 20sec. Alternatively, bake for 30 minutes at 170 deg C.
ALTERNATIVELY ...
Make the fudge frosting (recipe above), pour into an 8" x 8" deep baking tin.
Preheat the oven to 180 dec C. Prepare a "bain marie" (water bath filled with boiling water) to fit the baking tin in, so that the water comes up to about halfway up the height of the tin.
Make the spongy chocolate batter (recipe above), and pour on top of the fudge topping.
Bake in the bain marie for 45 minutes.
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