hello! the weather today is making me want to stay inside, drink many cups of tea (I had three before 10am, oh dear) and make extra delicious baked goods. I wanted to make something to reflect the weather outside being drizzly, grizzly and just plain chilly. also, i thought it would be perfect to our girls night in tomorrow and there is nothing better than watching 80s john hughes teen movies with something uber chocolatey!
I found this recipe from like a strawberry milk (which I love to read and pretend that I can decode her beautiful french) where it was called' le cake tres chocolat' (the very chocolate cake). I called it 'everything you could ever want chocolate cake' since it tastes like the darkest, fudgiest chocolate cake, takes about two minutes to mix together and you only have two bowls (and a little saucepan) to wash up! it was lovely with another cup of tea haha!
everything you could ever want chocolate cake
adapted from like a strawberry milk
1 1/3 cups (200g) plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup (50g) cocoa powder
1 1/4 (275g) sugar
180g dark chocolate
1/2 cup (125g) vegetable oil
1/2 cup (125ml) buttermilk
2 free range eggs
1/2 cup (125ml) boiling water
syrup
1 tsp cocoa powder
1/2 cup (125ml) water
1/2 cup (110g) sugar
Preheat your oven to 160ºC fan forced. Prepare a loaf tin and ensure that the baking paper extends over the sides (this will help you lift the cake out at the end)
In a large bowl sift together the dry ingredients.
Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl and mix in the oil, buttermilk and eggs.
Add the chocolate mixture to the dry ingredients and stir until smooth. Slowly incorporate the boiling water until you have a velvety smooth batter. Pour into prepared tin and bake for 40
minutes until cooked.
Make the chocolate syrup by combining all ingredients in a little saucepan and heat for 3-5 minutes until slightly thickened.
Pierce the cooked cake with a skewer to make little syrup holes and pour the syrup as evenly over the cake as possible. Allow the cake to cool in it's tin before using the baking paper 'handles' to lift it out. enjoy!
who would have thought fresh ginger syrup could be so useful! I was the lemonade stand girl at my church fair last weekend and wanted to mix things up a little so made fresh ginger syrup from this post from joy the baker (who's blog I am in love with!!). then mixed with fresh lemon juice, mineral water and mint leaves all over ice for a bright and summery drink. it was très bon! so zingy! so refreshing!
I also took some down to my granddad on sunday who is a complete ginger-fiend and a 'sugar mouth' as my granny would say (i.e. loves sugar - I think this is where I might have got it from) and we made homemade ginger lemonade as a gardening break and it was oh so lovely...like I said a very useful thing to have!
ginger lemonade
ginger syrup from joy the baker
(I added a little ground ginger for some extra bite)
then add some:
+ freshly squeezed lemon or lime juice
+ lemon or lime wedges
+ mineral water
+ mint leaves
+ ice
this carrot cake is the brain child of by my genius sister. I have been making this zucchini cake for a while now and love it so much because of it's amazing texture, taste and keeping qualities (seriously, it lasts so well!)
I was all keen and ready to make it the other day but alas! we had no zucchinis. anywhere. at all. zero.
but luckily my sister is a junior-einstein and suggested swapping carrots for the zucchinis and I made and it was p.e.r.f.e.c.t! some carrot cake recipes recommend using coarsely grated carrot to stop the cake getting too wet but finely grated works so well in this cake and I was able to reduce the oil content a little so two slices with a cup of tea is completely fine for sure!
perfect carrot cake
1 cup (about 150g) lightly toasted nuts (I used a combination of pecans and a few stray pretty pistachios), roughly chopped
1 cup (150g) flour
1 cup (150g) self raising flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
3 free range eggs
1 1/2 (330g) cups brown sugar
3/4 cup (185ml) vegetable oil
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 heaping cups (350g) finely grated carrots
Preheat your oven to 160ºC fan forced. Prepare a large bundt tin (or any other cake tin you like but baking times will vary)
In a medium bowl sift together the dry ingredients
In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, brown sugar and vegetable oil until thick and the sugar starts to dissolve. Add vanilla
Stir through the dry ingredients and ensure it is all mixed well then add the chopped nuts and carrot.
Pop the batter into the bundt tin and bake for 50 minutes or when a skewer put in the centre comes out clean and the cake begins to pull away from the edge of the tin.
Allow to cool in the tin for a while then turn out and enjoy! I loved it just plain or with a shower of icing sugar but you could definitely ice it with a classic cream cheese icing too!
this is the best cake I have ever made and I thought it would be a great way to start off hello jalapeño!
I really like the name hello jalapeño! however have already realised having the little fancy ñ is going to make for a lot of copy and paste-ing! when I was trying to think of a name I was like 'no tricky spelling, no punctuation or words that-could-be-spelt-differently-to-how-they-are-said' but I liked it so much I broke my rules!
anyway, welcome! I will be posting up pictures and recipes of tasty things I cook and would like to share with you
