Chocolate Cake with Butter Cream Icing

Wish you all, a very happy new year. May you all have a healthy, prosperous & peaceful life.

This is my first post for the year and thought let me start it with the yummy choco cake, I baked for Christmas.

I am a novice when it comes to baking and this is the second time, I am baking a cake; first attempt at icing. We had some friends come over on the Christmas day and they liked it. Hope it's not a white lie :)

Come to think of it, I added chocolate syrup,butter,condensed milk and whatnot. So it did taste great and it was a decent attempt. I had never thought I would venture out baking a cake. Leave alone baking, not even in my wildest dreams, I have seen myself getting passionate about cooking & blogging. Life definitely is a magical journey and such unexpected twists & turns make it worthwhile.

This attempt has also enlightened me on the amount of calories that goes into a piece of cake. Now, I will think twice before eating it.

On to the recipe, I have adapted this from Sandhya's Swirly Chocolate Walnut Cake.

I didn't use walnuts in my cake and added choco syrup instead of cocoa powder. Otherwise, it is pretty much the same, except for the swirling effect. I made this as a single cake.

She, in turn had mentioned in her post that she referred to Divya's Zebra Cake. So, thanks to Sandhya & Divya.

I got the icing recipe from net. After doing the icing, I thought why not decorate it with some choco shavings to make it richer. So, did that.

Ingredients:

Dry Ingredients:

All purpose flour - 2 cups

Baking powder - 1 tsp

Hershey's chocolate syrup - 2.5 tablespoon (I used generously for a rich chocolate taste)

Wet Ingredients:

Eggs : 2 (You can use even3)

Sugar : 1.25 cups (I added a little more since the chocolate syrup might make the cake bitter)

Sweet cream butter unsalted - 3/4 th cup + a little to grease the pan

Sweetened Condensed milk - 3/4 cup (Remember it should be sweetened or else you got to add extra sugar)

Milk - 1/2 cup

Vanilla Extract - 1 tsp

Method:

1) Sift together the flour and baking powder.

2) Beat the egg in a mixing bowl. Then mix the sugar and beat together till frothy. Use an electric mixer for the best result.

3) Add the condensed milk, vanilla extract and beat well. Add the butter, milk,chocolate syrup and mix well.

4) Add the dry ingredients and beat everything together without any lumps.

The cake batter is ready. It should be of pouring consistency. If you find it thick, you can mix a little milk. Fill it in a square/circular pan and bake in a preheated oven at 325 F for an hour.

Check with a toothpick.

The cake pan should be filled up to half its depth since the cake will rise.

Icing:

Ingredients:

Butter - 1 cup

Confectioner's Sugar - 3 cups

Chocolate Syrup - 1 tablespoon

Mix everything using a whisker. If you find it hard, mix a little milk/cream.

Decoration:

Chocolate shavings (grated some hershey's chocolate) and sprinkles

Setting up the cake:

Wait for the cake to cool down.

Carefully cut across the middle of the cake using a cake knife.

Place the bottom layer in a cake tray/plate. Apply the icing using the cake knife just as you butter a bread. Make it a thick layer. Place the other piece of the cake such that the icing is sandwiched.

Now start applying the icing all over the cake. For an even finish, I dipped the knife in a cup of water, now and then. But not too much water.

Now decorate with the chocolate shaving and sprinkles.

I'm sharing my cake with all of you.

Update:

Sending this to Divya's Show Me Your Cake event.

Also, to Mahimaa's Cakes and Cookies event.