Chocolate cake is universal

05/09/2020 baking by Leanne Cole 20 Comments

Everyone has a chocolate cake recipe and it can be just that easy because isn’t it a universal truth that everyone loves chocolate cake? It is also surprising to see how many people whose first cake was a chocolate one.

My first cake was chocolate something universal

It is true.

I made my first cake when I was 8 years old I think it was. It could have been 9, but definitely one or the other. It was a proud moment. I was given the recipe by my mum and I made it by myself.

When the cake came out of the oven, well we knew something was wrong because it was flat. Turns out I had used plain flour instead of self-raising. When it was cut you could see a marbled effect of black and brown. No idea why that happened, however, we did still eat it.

While it was the first chocolate cake I made, it certainly wasn’t the last. In the almost 50 years since that first one, I can’t tell you how many I have made since.

Looking back at chocolate cake

So the post I did yesterday was all leading to today’s post and me making another chocolate cake. Initially, I was going to make one from a book I got as a child, but then I remembered The Woman’s Book and thought, there has to be a chocolate cake recipe in it.

There was.

The recipe

The recipe is written with measurements that we no longer use in Australia, we are all metric, so I had to convert them. I am going to write it out here for you.

Chocolate Cake

114 grams Chocolate

85 grams butter

114 g castor sugar

3 eggs

85 g flour

1/2 teas baking powder

The method you can read from the image.

I used dark chocolate for this recipe. It didn’t state which to use, but it seemed the most logical.

There is vanilla essence in the image, but I didn’t realise until later that I didn’t need it.

Making the cake

This recipe was written before electric mixes and that sort of thing, so I did make some changes. Basically I used my KitchenAid to make the cake. Also, I used the microwave to melt the chocolate.

The recipe is a bit strange in that I have never seen one before where you separated the eggs and then whipped the whites to be mixed in later. I tried to follow the recipe as it was, here are some photos from it.

Baking the cake

There were no instructions on what size pan to use to bake this, so I had to make a guess. I also had no idea what it would look like when it was baked. Would it rise a lot? That sort of thing.

In the end, I used a pan I had that I have used for cakes before.

Turns out it was too big.

The finished cake

It was strange watching it bake. I had the oven on 160 C for a fan forced oven. That seemed like the right temperature. As it baked it looked like the cake was melting. It turned very running.

The recipe said to bake for 15 minutes, but it was still runny so I left it in for another 5 or so minutes before taking it out.

The big hole surrounded by crakes is where I tested it first and a big runny bit came out with the skewer.

Once it was cooked it was removed.

The cake cooked

Thankfully it did cook and it could be eaten if it was a little flat. Seems to be a theme around here.

It actually tasted really good as well. The dark chocolate really came out. I’ve never tasted a cake like it. It was like eating chocolate. I can imagine if you used a really good quality chocolate it would taste even better.

It did need something else and in the end, I made some chocolate icing and put it on top. Perhaps more chocolate might have been better as well.

The one thing I would have done really differently would have been to choose a much smaller tin to cook it in. I think mine was 25 cm or 10 inch tin. Perhaps a 20cm would have been better. I have also wondered if it would have been better to double it and then cook two separate cakes with a filling.

Would I make it again?

Possibly not, but it was an interesting experiment. I hope to do more of these. Not just from that book, but from others I have, plus a whole heap of women’s magazines I have from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. Could be a lot of fun. We won’t just look at the cooking though.

It is interesting to see how things have changed, or not, as the case is sometimes.

Have you ever tried baking something from many years ago? Do you have a chocolate cake recipe you absolutely love? When did you bake your first cake?

Photos

All the images were taken with my Fujifilm X-T3 and the 16-55mm lens. I was also using my mate Bucky to hold the camera. Bucky is my new tripod from 3 Legged Thing. It is the most versatile tripod I have ever owned. I can do a blog post on it if you would like.