CHOCOLATE CAKE

"All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt." - Charles M. Schulz

Chocolate cake is always good and home-made is even better. Trouble is many of the recipes are quite involved. This is fairly simple and you don’t even have to take the mixer out of the cupboard. No eggs are needed, either!

Lazy Chocolate Cake

Ingredients
Cake:
1 cup sugar
1 ½ cups flour
3 tbsp. cocoa
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla essence
1 tsp. vinegar
5 tbsp. molten unsalted butter
1 cup warm water

Syrup (optional):
Glassful of sugar
Glassful of water
Juice of a quarter lemon

Icing:
2 cups icing sugar
sprinkle of vanillin sugar
1 tbsp cocoa
1/3 cup unsalted butter
Enough milk to moisten
½ cup molten chocolate

Method
Cake:
Preheat oven to 180˚C.
Grease 20 cm cake tin.
Mix in a wide bowl, by sifting together all of the dry ingredients (sugar through salt).
Make three holes in the dry ingredients.
Add the vanilla, vinegar and melted butter, separately, into each of the three holes.
Pour the water over top of the ingredients in the pan and stir well, until well mixed.
Pour into the tin and bake 30 – 35 minutes at 180˚ C in the oven with the tin on top of a biscuit sheet.

Syrup:
If desired, boil the sugar and water for 3-4 minutes and squeeze the juice in as you turn the heat off.
Drench the cold cake with hot syrup, allowing it to be absorbed.

Icing:
Mix together the icing sugar, vanillin sugar and butter into a paste.
Add milk 1 tablespoon at a time to make a smooth icing.
Add the molten chocolate (reserving a spoonful), stirring well.
Put icing on the cake once it has cooled.
Use the reserved chocolate to drizzle on parallel straight lines, making the chevron patterns by dragging a skewer across the lines.

Enjoy your weekend!