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.
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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.
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I love it when I stumble across a new post of yours on Twitter! And great idea listing all your food styling props… I just need more time to go visit op shops more often!
Em
My stomach is now growling.. yum
The fact that I adore chocolate should be enough to love this post, the props & photos took it to an entirely different level.
That looks like one killer cake! I can never resist a good chocolate cake.
Arent the iPads SO addictive? Lol I find mine so usefull on the train to watch all my trashy tv shows on the way to and from work haha.
Sneh this cake looks sooooo good!
gorgeous photos Sneh!! They really make me wish I could reach through the screen to grab a piece.
Love how you added in styling notes too – super helpful!
I like the thought process here and ofcourse the cake. Looks like cookie cake in some ways.
looks so tempting 😀 love the background
Everything about this cake sounds Yummy! You have a great prop collection… Beautiful photos…
I like the sound of publishing a recipe on the same day you make it–wish I were that organized. The cake looks heavenly, like the perfect comfort food. Now, if I could have a slice… ha.
Yum!!! It’s 9pm and I am wish I had a slice of this cake right now!!! I love simple recipes like this too. It just makes you want to cook them all the more.
6 pillows?? hahaha awesome! your cake looks divine and love that you added where you got your props from!
I love a good chocolate cake. And this looks like an amazing chocolate cake! The photos are just lovely.
Love the food styling! And yay I wanted the recipe after your instagram!!
x
Wow. This is really beautiful. The cake, the photography, the styling, everything. I can’t believe I only just came across your blog but I’m so glad I finally have!
The photos & cake look gorgeous! Love the moodyness of the photos. You still have to tell me all about the iPad!
I love your pictures! The black background gives a dramatic effect…giving your chocolate cake more mystery. I am working on a butterfly crosstitch pattern on a black weave cloth and I think this is just the perfect recipe to go with that. Just like your pictures are so adorable so is your dark chocolate cake recipe…Thanks for posting!
The cake looks amazing!
I’m going to try this out later today since I have all the ingredients on hand 😀
Wow! Gorgeous photos. =)
What great looking cake. It does resemble a brownie, always popular here. You have amazing thrift stores, it would take ages to assemble just the items on this post. How lucky you are. GG
Surprise pockets of gooey chocolate? Sign me up! Looks gorgeous.
Hi Sneh,
I stumbled upon your blog a few days and I’ve been enjoying reading your post. This recipe in particular sounds super easy and absolutely delicious!
I do have a question regarding the rice bran oil. Is it ok to substitute it with olive oil?
Thanks!
Absolutely! In most recipes where I use rice bran oil, I always remake them with olive oil especially if I run out of rice bran oil. I find both oils to be very similar in density. Cheers!
Olive oil + chocolate is a beautiful combination. Would be amazing in a cake like this.
Beautiful photos as usual sneh!
Hi Sneh,
I love your blog, your photos are fantastic. I’m going to make this chocolate cake tomorrow for afternoon tea. I think the children are going to love it looks so moist and delicious.
Wish I could eb as disciplined as you and blog on the same day I cook. I’m lucky if I can even photograph on the same day!!! Super looking ooey gooey brownie cake!
Oh my… It looks so delicious. I would prefer not to see it. I need to think about my discipline! I’m going to the gym tomorrow. I shouldn’t be thinking about delicious chocolate cakes!
I made this for friends coming over and it went down with lots of “oh my goodness,yuuuum!” and one “this is the best cake I’ve ever eaten!”
We only ate half of it and the rest went in the fridge until 2 days later I had a chunk of it out the fridge, cold. Tasted like Ben & jerry’s brownies in their chocolate fudge brownie ice cream. In fact. Better!
I’m away to make some more for my boyfriend!
I loooove the photo with the chocolate-y spoon on the flowery plate, those flowers and colours give the pic an almost-Spanish feel.. pretty!! 😀
This sounds delicious!! and I LOVE these photos:)
The cake tooks absolutely amazing, and with the photography and props you used, it looks like I’ve been transported into another era. Such a vintage feel…looks gorgeous.
Thanks for sharing!
I made this cake last week for work colleagues and it was a hit. I can’t believe how chocolate rich it looks and tastes, even though it contains very little chocolate.
I added raspberries to the cake because I can rarely make a chocolate cake without them – just such a good match.
One thing though, this cake definitely should be served soon after baking: it’s just so much better warm and gooey.
OK, just made this and it’s insane amazing. This is the second Cook Republic cake I’ve baked and again it’s beyond delicious.
I added a tiny tiny pinch of sea salt over the cake to serve, and threw a 3 small dried mint leaves over the top. Crowd went kind of insane. I only wish I had made two!
Thanks so much xox
This is recipe with class.