The celebration: chocolate cake
Margaret Fulton nominates essential recipes for a quick feed, family feast, popular choice, light alternative and celebration.
If I had to choose only one chocolate cake recipe to carry me through life, this would have to be it. It is just as a chocolate cake should be — not the fudgy, flourless kind that everyone loves for dessert but the perfect cake to slice into wedges for afternoon teas and picnics. The sour cream is the secret to its lightness. The cake cuts easily, yet is rich and beautifully moist. You can keep it plain or add a coating of buttery almonds.
Once you get a good cake in your repertoire, there's always a cake you can take to someone.
The recipe makes one very large cake or two smaller cakes: one to eat and one to freeze for another time or give to a friend.
4 tbsp flaked almonds
1 cup boiling water
125g dark chocolate, chopped
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
250g unsalted butter
1 ½ cups castor sugar
3 large eggs, separated
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 ½ cups plain flour
A pinch of salt
1 tsp baking powder
2/3 cup light sour cream
Preheat the oven to 180C. Generously butter a three-litre fluted bundt tin or two 20-centimetre ring tins. Sprinkle with the flaked almonds (this step is optional), pressing them well into the butter to coat the base and sides of the tin.
Put the boiling water, chocolate and bicarbonate of soda in a bowl and stir until the chocolate is melted and smooth. Leave to cool.
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add the egg yolks one at a time, beating after each addition. Stir in the vanilla essence, adding it to the chocolate mixture a little at a time. Sift the flour, salt and baking powder and fold in alternately with the sour cream, mixing lightly until just combined.
Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold into the mixture with a large metal spoon.
Turn gently into the prepared tin(s) and bake for 1 hour-1 ¼ hours for a large cake, 45 minutes for smaller cakes, or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Leave for a minute, then turn out and cool on a wire rack.
Serves 16-20
Source: Good Living
