Extra Chocolaty Eggless Chocolate Cake

May has been the month to discover more about my new family. I had a lot of relatives coming and going and to celebrate the togetherness, I thought of baking a cake. Now plain vanilla is passé so chocolate sounded like a good deal. The only problem I faced was that there was no “great” recipe for chocolate cake on the net. I couldn’t very well go ahead and try any recipe. My reputation as the baker in the family would go bust along with the recipe. So I chose the recipe which I could relate to the most and then modified it according to my requirements. It was best to stick to the eggless vanilla cake recipe and somehow convert it to an eggless chocolate cake recipe.

I manufactured the recipe finally. My sister-in-law wanted to bake the cake along with me. So I had to be doubly sure that the cake would turn out well. So I just dumped all the contents in the bowl, made sure the consistency was right and then put it on the stove. After much waiting and peeping into the cooker, I finally got it out….and it got stuck to the cake pan. My heart started beating wildly. I was in a state of panic. No matter of beating the pan, shaking the pan or leaving it out would get it out. Finally my sis got it out and a small piece broke off from the side. We left it to cool. Then I made some icing to cover it up.

I mixed some cocoa, sugar and butter and gave it a good whipping. Problem was that the sugar had been ground at home so was not fine enough and obviously, did not dissolve in the butter and gave the whole thing a gritty feeling. To make it dissolve, I heated the icing. The sugar got caramelized instantly and what icing I had turned into small scattered solid masses. Scared as to what to do now, I added some cold milk to it. Thankfully, the icing relented its solid form and formed a smooth solid. But the sugar still did not dissolve. I had no choice now to to vow never to use homemade ground sugar for icing. I just coated the cake with icing and grated some chocolate on it.

This was not the end of my cake woes. I had read somewhere that one should turn the cake upside down and then apply icing. Anyways my cake was a little dented from the top so I did as advised. What I did not realize was the crust had become overdone as I had left the cake in for too long and was extremely hard. So when the cake was finally presented to the party and the kids lifted the knives to cut it, it would not! I was completely shaken. The kids started crying cos the cake was not getting cut. The attention was shifted from the cake problem thankfully and the cake was left to be tackled the next day. By then the crust had softened and the cake tasted like the most wonderful chocolate concoction ever made by me.

Ingredients

1 cup all purpose flour (maida)

200 gms condensed milk (1/2 tin Nestle Milkmaid)

½ cup ground sugar

¼ cup unsalted butter (ghee)

1 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tbsp cocoa

1 tbsp chocolate syrup for the extra zing (I used Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup)

1 tsp vanilla essence

Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda and cocoa. Add chocolate syrup, condensed milk, sugar and ghee and mix. Add vanilla essence. Keep adding water spoonful-by-spoonful till a pouring consistency is achieved. Grease and dust the baking pan. Pour the batter in it and bake for 45 mins to 1 hour. Cool on a wire rack before serving.

Extra Chocolaty Chocolate Cake

Icing

¼ cup cocoa

1 cup confectioners sugar

2 tbsp butter

1 tsp vanilla essence

Mix all the ingredients and beat till light and fluffy.  Spread evenly on the cake immediately.