Saturday 31 August 2013

The Best Chocolate Fudge Cake!

Surely, when baking a cake, it's mandatory to lick the bowl clean once you're finished? It's the law, isn't it? I remember this being a great treat when I was a child. My mum always baked us delicious cakes for our birthdays, and always made an effort to be as creative as possible, fashioning us caterpillars, Noah's Arks, dogs, and guitars out of sponge and icing. And when her creation was finished, we would always be invited to take a spoon and scrape the remaining cake mix and icing out of the bowls to be enjoyed there and then. Sometimes, I actually think that the raw cake mix is even better than the cake itself. (But it wouldn't look as impressive to be presented with, and I suppose the candles wouldn't really stay in place so well - could be a bit dangerous.)


I always took these cakes for granted (and I think I once even complained that I hadn't got the cake I wanted - what a brat!) - but now I see how lucky we were to always have a delicious, homemade cake to celebrate our special days. One lesson learned though, was never to bake a cake at the same time as you are decorating the kitchen....let's just say that Dulux and Crown don't make cake flavourings for a very good reason. We learned this the year that my mum baked a caterpillar cake for one of my sisters. To this day, my mum can't bring herself to eat cake that's shaped like a caterpillar (and she has as sweet a tooth as me, so that's saying something!).

So, all these years, and all these cakes.... Yesterday was my mum's birthday, and when one of my sisters said she was going to buy a cake to present to my mum at her birthday meal, I immediately said I'd bake one instead. After all, she who bakes all of our cakes surely deserves a home-baked caked too? Now, I do not consider myself a baker, but I have some recipes that will always turn out a good cake. This chocolate fudge cake is one of those.

I have never tweaked this recipe, other than to use vegetable oil in place of sunflower oil, which works just as well (oh, and I may have slightly increased the amount of cocoa in the icing this time!), so I will just direct to you to the BBC Good Food site, where I got this recipe originally. The only other thing I would say is that ovens can vary, so in my oven, I find 20 minutes is enough (the recipe says 25 - 30), so I would suggest checking it after 20 to see how it's doing. You wouldn't want to burn it! The best way to check is with a metal skewer. Insert it into the centre of the cake - if it comes out clean, the cake is done. If there is still some cake mix stuck to it, pop the cake back in the oven.

This cake has always been a huge hit with whomever I've baked it for - my boyfriend, my family, workmates...and it always, always turns out right. I also have no problem making this without an electric mixer. I use an electric whisk, as per the instructions, and other than that, just a mixing bowl and wooden spoon does the job fine*.

This recipe gives you a really light, moist, delicious cake, that is equally delicious cold or, if you want the full chocolate fudge experience, heated up in the microwave and served with a little cream poured over. Actually, I lied when I said I'd never really tweaked this recipe - I did make it once with chocolate ganache instead of butter icing, for a friend who finds the buttercream too sweet. That works well too, if you prefer the richer taste of ganache. But if you are going to heat it up, I'd recommend sticking with the icing as per the recipe, as it would just be too easy to slightly burn the ganache on reheating.

If you are looking for an easy, delicious cake to wow your friends with, you just can't go wrong with this one. (And yes, I scraped the bowl clean after making this.....it is the law, after all!)

* I should mention that you will also need other basic equipment, like a sieve, wooden spoon, cooling rack, etc.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Katie! I am totally with you on the raw cake mix. The cake looks amazing too! I'll definitely have to try it. I know quite a few people that would like to try this cake (myself included)! Nicola

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    1. It really does always go down well, Nicola - I even get requests for it now! Let me know what you think if you do try it, I'd love to hear.

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