Me and the word perfection is not usually a word that goes hand in hand.
I don’t usually strive for it, happy enough just to sit with the word content. So why was I trying to perfect a chocolate cake? To be honest I don’t really know. I started the challenge and apparently I would be unrelenting until I perfected the bugger.
Everyone needs a chocolate cake recipe up their sleeves. A go to recipe that was tried and true. Unfailing in its taste and you know it will turn out each time. I didn’t have that recipe. Sure I had made countless chocolate cakes in the past, but none of them were quite what I was after. Not too chocolatey, not too rich, not too dry, not too fancy pancy and not a pain to put together.
Shouldn’t be too hard right?
There are probably a few chocolate cake recipes on the internet, Mr Chocolate helpfully suggested.
Yes. Yes there probably is… but they aren’t the righhhht ones.
So I set forth. The chocolate cake challenge was on.
Cake one, no. Cake two…no. Cake three….still no. Cake four, it’s getting closer. Cake five?
Cake five might just have it. Not being particularly enamored of chocolate cake I did wonder why I was putting myself through this. These unhelpful thoughts were pushed to the side however. I’d come this far, surely that chocolate cake was just around the corner?
Chocolate Cake
150g softened butter
150g brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla
4 beaten eggs
150g sourdough starter/ sour cream*
150g melted chocolate (50%)
60mls espresso coffee (1/4 cup)
225g s/r flour (1 1/2 cups)
cocoa powder (1/3 cup)
2 tbls amaretto
In a mixer, cream butter and sugar until changes colour to a white shade, then add vanilla, eggs, cocoa, melted chocolate, amaretto and sourdough starter/sour cream. Fold through flour.
Bake at 180C for approximately 45 minutes in a greased springform pan or greased and lined square pan (approx 21cm). Or until skewer comes out clean.
Icing
1 tbls softened butter
1 1/2-ish cups icing sugar
5og melted chocolate
* if you don’t have a sourdough starter, substitute sour cream.
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So does Number 5 cake cut it? It’s certainly not a bad cake. The flavours are complex enough to keep me happy with the addition of the amaretto, coffee and the starter. It’s moist. It’s chocolatey, without being intense and it was easy to put together.
So will chocolate cake and I ever become firm friends?
It’s quite doubtful. but I’ll make it to keep the rest of the family happy, and they are certainly happy enough with Number 5 Chocolate Cake.