About 2 months ago, we had been to a farm near our place. We were hoping to do some berry picking. But unfortunately due to bad weather this year, they had lost their crop of berries and were no more allowing any pickings. If I say I was disappointed, then it would be a understatement. So anyway, we were in this small reception booth where they were selling few books as well as breads and other stuff. As usual, I went near the book shelf and one particular book caught my attention. Now, you all know, I have some craze for traditional and authentic recipes. So I picked up a thin book – Old fashioned Cake and Cheesecake recipes. I can say this is one of my best spent $3 on book shopping :).
After few days of that, one of my friends (who was my colleague) was leaving our company for a better opportunity somewhere else. I wanted to make a send off cake for her. When I asked her, she said she likes chocolate cakes. So I decided to bake a cake from the above book. But I was very tensed. All these days I had baked for my hubby and his friends who were not grown up eating cakes. They would accept any reasonable tasting cake and say it was good. But when I had to bake for some fine chefs(one of our colleague is a good chef), I was bit afraid. I didn’t want to loose my face in front of everyone.
It is better not to tell what happened in all my nervousness. It is enough to tell the cake looked like a disaster. Anyway, to top it off, I refrigerated it and next day the frosting had become hard like cement. I was close to tears. I took it to office anyway and shyly showed it to my friend and told her I was very sorry for the mess I had created. She and ‘the chef’, both looked at it and said it was not as bad as I had described it. We let it rest for 2-3hrs in which the cake came to room temperature and the frosting was back to its normal state. I can’t say how happy I was. Then we tasted it. I should say it was one of the best tasting chocolate cakes I ever made. Delicious, soft and moist, too good to be true.
Fudge cake:
1 and 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tea spn baking soda
1 tea spn baking powder
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 tea spn vanilla extract
2 eggs
3/8 cup unsweetened chocolate
1/2 cup ice water
Method:
Sift together flour, soda, baking powder.
In a separate bowl beat softened butter with sugar and vanilla till they are well mixed. Now add eggs and beat again till fluffy.
Melt chocolate on low heat, switch off heat and add to butter mixture. Add iced water and flour mixture alternately and mix well.
Grease a baking pan and pour the batter in it.
Preheat the oven at 350F for 10mins. Bake the cake for about 30-35mins at 350F or till a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.
Chocolate frosting:
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
6tbl spn milk
1 tea spn vanilla
4 cups(approx 1lb) confectioners’ sugar
Method:
Combine butter, cocoa, milk in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and take off from heat. Add vanilla, sugar, beating continuously till it holds a peak.
Finishing:
Cut the cake into two equal half horizontally.
Spread a thick layer of frosting on top of it.
Keep the other half on top and spread remaining frosting on the cake. Decorate with pecans and raspberry(I thought these two would look good on this cake, it was not mentioned in recipe).
PS: The frosting was not very easy to handle. So you can see the cracks on the cake :(.
Hi, Have a few doubts in this recipe…please clarify…:)
How long should we beat the egg?… until soft & fluffy or just until well mixed?
“Melt chocolate on low heat and add to butter mixture. Add iced water and flour mixture alternately and mix well.”
Should the butter mixture, flour & water be added while it’s still on heat or should we take it off from heat once the chocolate melts?…
Shilpa: Dev, I updated the post to answer your questions. Please have a look.
oh Shilpa, Wish i was your neighbour 🙁 that cake looks soooooooooo yummy!!! Slurp!! Your kids are very lucky to have a Mom like you 🙂
Fundu re. Very nice cake and a lovely recipe. Tell me, do you refrigerate the cake before applying frosting? I always have a tough time with the crumbs.
Shilpa: Thanks swapna. Actually our teacher told us to apply a very thin layer of very thin frosting, let it dry before going ahead with actual frosting. This method usually works. I never refrigerated it for butter cream icing. I heard for cream frosting, we need to refrigerate the cake.
Any replacement for eggs Shilpa?
Shilpa: I think you can make the eggless moist chocolate cake. I don’t have any idea of any substitute in this particular cake. Please refer Zlamushka’s comment below, she has mentioned bananas can be added instead of eggs. Personally I like the cakes with eggs since they are more fluffy, but I would definitely like to try with bananas.
Shilpa….all the emotional ups & downs you went thru,prior to making this and your efforts hv paid off so well! Kitle channddaaa dista cake!!!I feel like diving into the screen and pulling it out! Just yest..as i was going thru ur recipe, i was wondering, when wd Shilpa post a cake? then i thought maybe since you dont hv people to eat huge cake,u r not baking it!And today as I click on AR, a cake appears!! Wow..And There r absolutely no cracks on the cake, the pecans on sides look just right,the top decoration is simply superb!!!The frosting done so neatly..the moist piece shows vertical view of the cake,the thinly spread icing on top! And considering how difficult the fudge frosting was…you hv done an awesome job ya!!
I baked an orange cake yest..(bamnalo bday Gandhi Jayanti disu yetta..one day belated cake for busy hubby who absolutely loved it..and I silently in my mind thanked you for making me pursue baking!!) I m waiting for 3 more posts of yours, then it would be 5 centuries for you..post wise!!
Lovely Cake ! Lovely Cake ! Too good!
Please occassionaly do keep posting such
temptations!! And yes..I shall surely try this one next month! I m planning to make this my darling daughter’s bday cake!
You are an all-rounder, Shilpa 🙂
The end product is all that matters. The cake looks great!
cake sure looks yum! and i am happy that all turned out well for you in the end, hope u do more baking from that book!
Fantastic recipe Shilpa. Specially the frosting. am going to try this. recipe bookmarked.thanks
looks delicious – what purpose does the ice water serve?
what an amazing cake shilpa!!!
Love to have a big bite of that amzing piece now!!
Yummy cake!!!
I just now read the article in rediff.com featuring your blog. Congrats and best wishes.
Why don’t I have colleagues like you 🙁
Shilpa..
Just read an article in rediff and your site was mentioned there… Congratulations and best wishes to you…:)
Great cake,
and GRIHINI – yes, tons of substitutions, my favorite is mashed bananas. It kinda fluffs up, too (kinda, I repeat)
Wow the cake looks so super delicious.
I woudn’t mind to have a fat slice
Shilpa,
This looks amazing. I was just reading in one of my cookbooks that using iced water makes the cake smoother and more uniform. You obviously got the consistency perfect, the cake is perfectly shaped!
*sweet* 🙂
cake looks absolutely yummy 🙂 can one ever say no to chocolate 🙂
Oh wow, I wish I was your colleague friend!! The cake looks gorgeous..yummy!
you’re such a sweetheart, shilpa.
Such nice and moist cake, Shilpa! and Chocolate cake, absolutely inviting! Feel like grabbing a slice of that 🙂
hey the cake looks gorgeous….wish I could have a bite too…:)
wow!!
yummy cake
what’s the occassion shilpa?
hi shilpa, the cake looks great .. i live in calgary, canada and have recently taken up baking .. am planning to bake some cookies for halloween .. for my som
Hey Shilpa
yet another amazing post 🙂 you already had a huge fan following and now I am in line too !
This looks so yummy I wanna make one too. Though the thing is I follow a vegetarian diet. I do eat pastries with egg in them outside, but won’t be comfortable getting eggs home as my husband is a strict vegetarian.
What is the alternative? a little bit of
dahi?
Thanks
Seasons
Shilpa: I think it is better to make the eggless chocolate cake than trying to substitute egg in this particular recipe. But if you want to, then as Zlamushka said above, you can try bananas(sorry, I don’t know the measurements)
Hey, it’s a pleasure to enjoy your baking creations again.
Hey.. Shilpa..
Cake looks yummy…!!
Wonderful..!!
Thanks for answering my question about Egg Replacer. Thankyou too Zlamushka. 🙂
Shilpa, good to see your site back in action. When checked in the morning today, it gave me problems (Size exceeded or something like that)
Shilpa- you’re way too hard on yourself! The cake looks splendid!!! And it looks like it would taste splendid as well! And that was so nice of you to make it.
A good way to know how your cakes are is by buying slices of cake from nice restaurants, nice bakeries, or Italian cafes, German bakeries if they are around- even Starbuck’s has decent cakes- and sampling them. You’ll gain weight, but the knowledge-collecting sure is fun! 😉
I made a cake a few days ago- strangely enough, I also used pecans to decorate the sides such as yours (will post a pic soon). Raspberries are always nice with chocolate- the tartness/sourness is a good foil for the bitter-sweet.
Oh, Shilpa, I could feel how nervous you felt, when I read this! We are always our own worst critics! I’m sure *all* your colleagues enjoyed this beautiful cake. You baked it with lots of love, and that’s what counts most 🙂
Can this be done int he micro wave oven if so how?
Shilpa: Sorry, I don’t know 🙁
Hi Shilpa,
That’s a lovely looking cake, but as much as I would like to eat it with frosting, I wouldn’t be able to make it myself,too much sugar and butter! How will the cake taste on its own, without the frosting? And how did the top of your cake come out so smooth and flat?
Thanks.
Shilpa: This is a bit dry cake if you don’t use frosting. But you might like it. Try it. I just smoothed the frosting with a spatula for a long time allowing it to cool and settle in between.
Wow you made cake from scratch. Nice job!
Shilpa the cake looks yummy… did u add the egg whole or just the egg white…:??can u temme whats the difference between the butter cream icing and cream frosting??….what is royal icing??? i got wilton frosting….can that be used for layering fondant..on the cake…
Shilpa: Shubha, Please read about different icings at wilton.com. I added whole egg to this. Cream frosting is just cream + sugar + some kind of flavoring. Are you making a fondant cake or fudge cake? Fondant is a kind of icing. I am bit confused by your question.
Great looking cake Shilpa. I am sure your friends were happy, n I hope one day you’ll bake me a cake too.
hi shilpa ur recipe looks realy nice n m gonna try ths recipe soon bt hv 1 question only. u added 3/8 cup unsweetened sugar in the recipe, hw to measure it in measurment cup. i m really confused here.can i relace ths ingredient with something else or if jst discard it frm the recipe .wht u say?pls ans soon as i m willing to make ths cake.
Shilpa: Urvashi, its unsweetened chocolate and the main ingredient in chocolate cake. You cannot leave it out. I use measuring cup set which is available easily in market these days. The set has cups and spoons of different measurements. This is very helpful in measuring everything for baking.
ur cake wud looknice in me aswell
Hi,
Is this unsweetened cocoa you are using in frosting is cocoa powder,if yes can we use semi sweet cocoa powder?
Shilpa: Yes you can use. But you may have to change the proportions according to taste.
Hi Shilpa,
Thankyou for quick replay,i am going make this cake for my husband’s B’day,he loves chocolate and i am sure that he will
like this cake.
Hi Shilpa,
I have doubt that can i make this cake two days before and keep refrigerate,will that will be ok?
hi,
I used powdered sugar instead of confectioners’ sugar for the frosting.
Rest all ingredients were same, but the frosting tasted like sugar paste, not good at all. Is it because of using powdered sugar?, I did some research and found it could be used interchangeably.
Also, I tried Wilton’s butter cream icing that you used in your ginger cake, I got same results for that icing as well; it tasted as a sugar paste.
Can you help me out?
Not sure what you mean by sugar paste. I use Wilton’s buttercream all the time. You can add some flavoring to it if needed
Hi,very tempting.I m eager to try this.But little bit confused.What do u mean by unsweetened chocolate & cocoa and also confectioners’ sugar ?Waiting for your reply.Bye take care.
You get unsweetened chocolate morsels/chunks on baking isles here in US. Not sure if they are available in India. Unsweetened chocolate is just chocolate without sugar. You can use any cocoa powder available. Confectioners sugar is a kind of powdered sugar.