Believe or not, now everyone in my house bakes! We have a cleaning and dinner roster at home, but soon we are going to make a baking roster. Haha.

I really don’t know how everyone got interested in baking. Normally, it is common for girls to bake (esp. those who study overseas) but you’ll rarely see a group of guys (medical students summore) who will diligently study cook books and search high and low for the perfect recipe as though they are looking for a ingredients for a wonder drug.

 

I have several theories how we caught the baking bug.

1. We love watching MasterChef Australia. I’ve been watching since day one in Melbourne and the whole house will be in front of the TV every Wednesday night. I think this was how we’ve learned about fining dining and culinary skills. 
2. The equipments. Hengky’s sister loves to bake and cook so we have a complete arsenal of baking equipment at our disposal. MUA HAHAHA…
3. Previous baking tutorial with the girls? During the spring break, after bible study, we went to Coles on Friday night like 11.30pm to shop for ingredients and baked mango cupcakes until 3am in Joy’s place. Maybe that was how were introduced to the world of baking.

 

Anyway… back to the cake…

The cake came out perfect although I was worried it wouldn’t rise because I didn’t put enough baking soda. I love the glossy toppings.

 

The cake was 20cm x 20cm and I managed to bring to the church on Sunday to let the rest try. Too bad I didn’t have any vanilla ice cream at that time to match the cake. Btw, I purposely arranged the vase and cup in the picture to make it look like it was from a restaurant. The cup contained real wine but I didn’t drink it. I simply borrowed one of the bottle that was at home for this picture. Hehe.

 

Yummy dark chocolate flowing down…

I used the recipe from Cadbury’s website. The instructions are pretty straight forward and easy to understand unlike other baking recipes out there. I used fan forced for the first 20 minutes before turning it to conventional at 190ºC to avoid over drying my cake. Also, I used other brands of chocolate instead of Cadbury.

 

 

MOIST CHOCOLATE CAKE

taken from http://www.cadbury.com.au/Cadbury-Kitchen/Teatime-Treats/Moist-Chocolate-Cake.aspx

Ingredients

CAKE BATTER
1 cup water
1¼ cups caster sugar
125g butter
½ cup Cadbury® Bournville® Cocoa
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1¼ cups self raising flour, sifted
2 eggs, lightly beaten

CHOCOLATE ICING
200g Cadbury® Dark Cooking Chocolate, finely chopped
2/3 cup cream

Method

1. Preheat oven to 190ºC conventional or 170ºC fan forced.
2. Line a 20cm cake pan base with baking paper and lightly grease sides of pan.
3. Combine water, sugar, butter, cocoa and bicarbonate of soda in medium saucepan; stir over heat, without boiling, until sugar dissolves.
4. Bring to boil, reduce heat & simmer uncovered for 2 minutes. Transfer to a bowl. Cool to room temperature (this takes about 30 minutes).
5. Add flour and egg and beat until just combined.
6. Pour into pan and bake for 40 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes then turn onto cooling rack.
7. Drizzle over chocolate icing.
8. To make the chocolate icing, combine chocolate and cream in a small saucepan. Stir over a low heat until chocolate has melted and an even chocolate sauce is formed.