Chocolate Cake
- Recipe: Retro chocolate cake
Makes 20cm circular cake
Preparation time 30 minutes
Cooking time 1 hour
Ingredients 3 eggs/ 3 tbsp cocoa powder/ 3 tbsp boiling water/ 170g caster sugar/ 170g self-raising flour/ 140g (cake base) + 30g (chocolate topping) room temperature butter/ 30g icing sugar/ 3 drops vanilla essence/ 170g cooking chocolate (unsweetened chocolate)
Measuring terminology: tbsp=tablespoon=15ml/ tsp=teaspoon=5ml
1 Preheat the oven to 180°C/ 160°C Fan/ Gas 4.
2 Cut and place a piece of baking paper on the base of a springform tin (20cm) and stick it down with a little butter. Grease the sides of the tin.
3 Add the sugar, flour, eggs and 140g butter to a mixing bowl. Mix the cocoa powder with the boiling water, add to the bowl and beat thoroughly. Pour the mixture into the cake tin.
4 Bake for about 1 hour (until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean). Leave the cake in the tin for a few minutes before taking it out and placing it onto a cooling rack to cool.
5 Meanwhile, mix the 30g butter, vanilla essence and icing sugar together in a jug until smooth. Gently melt the cooking chocolate (about 1 minute on medium setting in a microwave). Beat well into the butter mixture and allow it to start to thicken before pouring on the cake.
6 If you have prepared cake decorations, like almond chips or chocolate buttons, stick them on before the chocolate icing hardens.
I made this chocolate cake following my grandmother-in-law’s recipe so it is quite different to other cake recipes in terms of the ingredients or quantity. The weights in the recipe were in ounces, so I’ve changed them to grams and rounded off the numbers. Since this is not a sandwich cake, It is thicker and is cooked at a lower temperature and for longer than other cakes.
It came to be my beloved other half's birthday, so I decorated the chocolate cake as a birthday cake. I wanted to write the letters by hand with bright-coloured icing, but in the end I just made ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY’ by assembling sugar strands in the shape of the letters. It’s not perfect but it was a ‘big task’ that needed more effort than I expected to make the shooting stars and lettering. I think it will be better to just use brightly coloured icing next time. There are various options like buttercream and lemon juice icing.
If you want to make icing, you can refer to BBC Food for various recipes.
For the topping, I used 3 pieces each of milk chocolate and dark chocolate that came to about 170 grams in total. If you only have plain flour and need to make self-raising flour, please refer to my Victoria sponge recipe.
In the UK, home baking is not uncommon and bread is the staple food, so you can easily find a variety of baking related products in supermarkets. Butter is rather high in calories to eat with every meal and when it is cold it is not soft, so it is not easy to spread on bread. Therefore many people eat vegetable or dairy spreads with daily meals and depending on the need use margarine, butter or baking spreads for baking.
For example, when the rich flavour of butter is important, such as for cheesecake, or when making a crunchy biscuit base that needs to be hardened, it may be better to use butter. When baking something soft and moist, such as cake icing or sponge cake, it may be better to use margarine or spread. For this chocolate cake I used a baking spread which is made with 70% vegetable fat. Margarine is soft even when it is cold, so it doesn’t need to be warmed up to room temperature.
The differences between butter, margarine and spread are broadly defined by the type or content of fat and ratio of water. Butter contains 80% milk fat and less than 20% water, while margarine contains 80% vegetable and/or milk fat and less than 20% water. By contrast, the fat content of spreads is not regulated and they use more water instead of oil. Therefore, the fat content can be selected in various ways, sometimes less than 60%, and the water content can be up to 40%. Margarine and butter differ in their saturated and unsaturated fat content, so in some cases, margarine may be better for heart health. However, because margarine made from trans fat increases the risk of heart disease, it is best to check the exact fat content and ratio by looking at the front of the package.
We usually eat bread with spread instead of butter too. For more detail on the classification of butter, margarine and spreads, take a look at this article from Land O'Lakes. Take a look at the references below and choose the ingredient that suits your purpose.
A Sumerian tablet, dating to approximately 2,500 B.C., described the complete butter making process starting from the milking of cattle, and other tablets showed the use of butter as a ritual offering. In the Mediterranean climate, unclarified butter spoils quickly, unlike cheese, so it was not a practical method of preserving the nutrients of milk. Therefore the ancient Greeks and Romans seemed to have considered butter a food fit more for the northern barbarians. In the cooler climates of northern Europe, people could store butter longer before it spoiled. Scandinavia has the oldest tradition in Europe of butter export trade, dating at least to the 12th century.
After the fall of Rome and through much of the Middle Ages, butter was a common food across most of Europe but had a low reputation, and so was consumed principally by peasants. Butter slowly became more accepted by the upper class, notably when the Roman Catholic Church allowed its consumption during Lent from the early 16th century. Bread and butter became common fare among the middle class and the English, in particular, gained a reputation for their liberal use of melted butter as a sauce with meat and vegetables.
The History Of Butter
It’s not precisely known who invented butter. There is a theory of how humans created the first batch purely by accident. Quite likely, some nomad was transporting sheepskin bags with milk attached to his horse or another animal he was riding. And during the journey, milk was constantly getting churned in those bags thanks to the movement of the horse. So when the nomad reached the destination, he had a creamy and delicious surprise in his bags – butter.
This theory is backed up by the evidence of how was butter made in the olden days. People were making this spread using leather bags and horses. Also, they could simply vigorously shake the bag with their hands until the milk turns into butter. However, they used goat, sheep, and yak milk instead of cows. Plainly because those beasts were the ones domesticated by humans back then, and even though we don’t know when exactly butter was invented, we can suppose that we have this spread for around 10000 years.
Because of the colder climate, butter was more popular in northern Europe. However, there are mentions of this spread in ancient Near Eastern texts – their butter was called ghee. It was sold in Arabia and Sudan. And in India, it was used as an offering to gods and considered to be a symbol of purity. So it is hard to tell where did butter originate from exactly. It seemed to be everywhere.
Interestingly enough, southern Europeans had a different take on butter thinking of it as a barbarian food. This is quite logical if you think of it – northern Europeans were not the friendliest guys back then. So why would Mediterraneans appreciate the food of their enemy? Especially considering that they were rather abundant with olive oil. Still, Romans used butter. Not to eat, gods forbid. But to heal wounds and improve the skin. Although we believe they did sneak a lick or two while applying butter. Such a wide variety of uses explains why was butter invented – it was not only delicious but useful, too.
- Source: some of Milky day article The history of butter
(Reference: Anchor: Know your butter, MILKY DAY: The history of butter, Wikipedia: Butter,
