With the extremely early arrival of my Christmas present – the iPad 2, I now have even fewer hours in my day than I did before. After being enslaved to it for a good few hours on the first day and earning a splitting headache as a result, I decided to be more disciplined. I am good at that. Disciplining myself. A week later my life continues as usual, drama-free. The only headaches I have are from the hilarity that are my new pillows, six of them. But that story is for another day.
I have really taken a shine to simple everyday recipes that I can whip up as fast as they take on my fancy. Real quick! Before I can change my mind! Recipes that I would want my readers to try out too because they are so simple and fabulous. Extending the disciplining to this particular area of my life, I have been recently blogging about recipes I cook on the day I cook them. It is very gratifying to do that.
Earlier today I baked a Sticky Dark Chocolate Cake. The name says it all. It is dead simple to bake. It is gooey and rich but not overly rich. It is like a brownie. It smells like heaven. It feels like heaven. It has surprise pockets of oozy chocolate. It makes me wish I had some of that home made vanilla ice cream leftover to douse on. It sticks. It makes me forget about discipline.
{Food Styling And Photography Prop Alert}
The base is a black linen cloth brought from Spotlight $11/meter. The recipe page is ripped from a vintage Cooking Encyclopedia $1 Thrift Store. Black melamine cutlery by Zeal – $12 Peters Of Kensington. Vintage wooden hand painted cake board – $2 Thrift Store. Vintage sieve – $1 Thrift Store. Steel Bowl – $2 K-Mart. Wooden Spoon – $2 Target. Magnifying Glass – $3 Thrift Store. Floral napkin – $1 Thrift Store.
[print_this]
STICKY DARK CHOCOLATE CAKE
Adapted From A Piece Of Cake – Leila Lindholm [Amazon | Book Depository]
Preparation Time – 20 minutes
Baking Time – 40 minutes
Serves – 8
Ingredients
50g butter
50ml rice bran oil
185g caster sugar
75g brown sugar
2 eggs
150g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
4 tablespoons cocoa powder
pinch of salt
handful of dark chocolate bits or melts
butter to grease pan
Method
Pre-heat oven to 150C. Grease and line a 20cm (8 inch) springform tin with baking paper. In a heavy bottomed saucepan, melt butter and oil on low heat till mixed.
Whisk eggs, caster sugar and brown sugar in a bowl with an electric beater until light and creamy. Add the butter mixture and beat well. Add flour, baking powder, cocoa powder, vanillin sugar and salt. Beat until combined.
Spoon into prepared tin. Top with chocolate bits/melts. Bake in pre-heated oven for approximately 40 minutes until the top has cracked and the cake is sticky and done when tested with a skewer.
Remove from oven, cool in tin for 10 minutes and serve warm.
[/print_this]