Chocolate Truffle Cake

Baked this lovely chocolate cake last saturday evening on a whim - and it simply turned out great. I am fond of baking cakes which are non-fussy and which do not require me to use all the utensils and gadgets available in my small kitchen. This cake batter was prepared within 15 mins using only a small hand-held manual whisk and a big porcelain bowl:) The top icing was a little fussy - somehow it was a bit too runny for my taste.

Actually I did not have a 8" round baking cake-tin, only a big square tin and a small (hardly 5") round tin. Somehow my cakes in the square tin always were cracking on the top, so this weekend, we bought our new 8" round cake -tin:) I have described the recipe below, which I had longtime back written down from somewhere I dont remember now.

Ingredients for the Chocolate Cake

# 3/4 cup flour (maida) - my base cup is 250 ml here for reference

# 2/3 cup cocoa powder

# 4 eggs

# 1/2 cup vegetable oil

# 3/4 cup powdered sugar

# 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda

# 1/4 tsp vanilla essence

Method:

1. Sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder and baking soda together and keep aside.

2. Beat sugar and eggs in a big bowl till very frothy. Add the vanilla essence. Gradually add oil while beating the mixture lightly. Slowly fold in the flour mixture in this egg-oil mixture. Do not over-beat. The batter is done!!:)

3. Meanwhile, have a 8 inch round cake tin greased and dusted, and preheat the oven at 150 C. Pour the cake batter in the tin and bake for 30-40 mins till a toothpick inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean. Let the cake cool a while, before removing from the tin. My cake turned out simply divine - soft, fluffy, with no cracks and an uniform dome with nearly 2 inch thickness.

Ingredients for Middle Icing

# 75 g softened white butter

# 1/2 cup sifted icing sugar

# 2 tbsp cocoa powder

# 1 tsp vanilla/brandy/rum essence

Method: Beat the white butter till soft and creamy, then add in the icing sugar - beating well till it turns fluffy. Add the cocoa powder to the get the desired colour - preferably lighter shade than the cake. Keep this icing in the fridge for a while. Meanwhile, cut the cool cake into two parts (We used a string, or you can also use a big flat knife). Soak both the parts of the cake with some sweet aromatic liquid (we used water+sugar+essence, or alternately you can also use coke or milk instead of water). Spread the icing on the lower half of the cake using a spatula and cover it with the top half.

Ingredients for Chocolate Icing for top

# 1 tbsp white butter

# 1 big dark chocolate slab - 80-90 g

# 1/2 cup icing sugar

# 2 tbsp water

# 1 egg

Method: Boil the water in a small saucepan and break the cocolate slab in small pieces and put it in the sauce pan for melting. Keep stirring it all the time, on low heat and when completely melted, add the butter and stir. Remove from heat and add the icing sugar - mixing all the time for it to dissolve completely. Break an egg into this and immediately stir vigorouly and cook on low heat. Stir continously, till you get a thick smooth pouring consistency. Do not let this mixture boil. Somehow, we had to cook this icing for a longtime, and then refrigerate it for 5-10 mins to get a nioce thick icing. Just pour this over the cake - it will flow on its own and cover the cake completely. Decorate the cake as you wish - we simply threw a handful of cadbury gems on it, to make it vibrant and colorful:) Refrigerate the cake for a couple of hours to set the icing completely.

As you can imagine - this is a huge cake between the two of us - so we've been hogging on it for the last 2-3 days:) Now that people have started complimenting my hubby on his new-found paunch, he has strictly prohibited me from baking any more cakes this month:(, so I guess, now I will have to fish out pics of earlier taken food and put them on my blog. Tho' the good part is that I get to finish off the rest of the cake today and lick the crumbs off the plate, since he is on a "strict diet" since this morning;)