Baking with Berea Mail: Decadent Chocolate Cake Recipe

WHETHER it is a plain croissant, a moderately sweet milk tart, or an ultra-rich chocolate brownie, whatever suits the taste pallet, most people love indulging in baked goods! And with so many recipes to choose from and a range of flavours to create, it can be hard to decide which recipe to try out in your own kitchen when the opportunity presents itself to start baking. It can also be a task to find a recipe that is easy to follow and one that produces effective and delicious results.

If you are looking to test out some new, reliable recipes in your kitchen, watch out for the bi-monthly edition of Baking with Berea Mail. This feature will include recipes from bakers, chefs and professionals in the food-business industry who will share their baking secrets and their prized recipes for you to test out at home! So bust out your aprons and look out for this exciting new bi-monthly feature in the next edition of the Berea Mail newspaper.

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This week we spoke to Carol Phipps, owner of Carol’s Home Industries in Glenwood. Her quaint cake shop sells all sorts of sweet treats from brownies to cupcakes to delicious pies, such as her bestselling lemon meringue pie, and the store is beloved and frequented by the community of Glenwood. Established in 2007, the small, independent cake shop creates novelty cakes and tasty platters to suit every occasion and is located at 397 Che Guevara Road, Glenwood Village Centre, Durban. Carol says she has various bestsellers at her store but she hardly comes across customers who don’t love a good old-fashioned chocolate cake. She describes the chocolate cakes she sells as moist, not too sweet, and very, very tasty. The Glenwood resident and shop owner shared her chocolate cake recipe with Berea Mail so you can recreate this delicious treat at home. Enjoy!

Decadent Chocolate Cake Recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of flour
• 3/4 cup of cocoa powder
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
• 2 teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda
• A pinch of salt
• 1 cup of milk
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
• 2 cups of sugar
• 1/2 cup of oil
• 1 cup of boiling-water or hot, black coffee
• 2 eggs

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Baking method:

• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
• Line a 2 x 23cm round cake pan with greased wax paper on the bottom of the pan. Grease the sides of the pan with baking margarine used for grease.
• Sift dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
• Add eggs, milk and vanilla essence and beat with an electric beater for two minutes.
• Add boiling water or black coffee and mix until combined.
• Pour mixture into prepared pans and bake for 30–40 minutes.
• Test that the cake is ready by inserting a toothpick into the middle of the pan. If it comes up clean, the cake is ready.
• Slide a knife around the edge of each side of the cake to loosen it from the pan, turn the pan over onto a metal rack and peel the paper off.
• Let the cake cool completely before covering it with the icing of your choice.