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This weekend, it is #NigeriaDecides2023 and I’ve chosen to remain indoors until it is all over. This means more cooking, more baking and more experimenting in the kitchen. For the past 4 weeks, I’ve been promising myself chocolate cake, but I’ve been too lazy to keep this promise. Thankfully, my stay-at-home mood has got me bored enough. The recipe to this yummy chocolate cake has been in my phone for 4 months now and am sharing it with you today. Continue reading for ingredients and steps

To make this cake, I didn’t use a stand mixer or a hand mixer_ I did everything by hand, except for the whipped cream frosting, which definitely requires high speed mixing. I am going to give you the ingredients for just the cake and the frosting ingredients will come later as we go along the steps.

CAKE

• 250g All Purpose Flour 
• 60g Cocoa Powder 
• 230g Sugar 
• 100g vegetable oil 
• 2 eggs 
• 2 teaspoons baking powder 
• 1 & 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 
• 1 teaspoon salt 
• 1.5g coffee 
• 1 Cup Buttermilk 
• 3/4 cup hot water 
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

RECIPE

To begin, gather all your ingredients.

Into a Pyrex bowl, sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and baking soda and whisk very well. 

Add the salt, sugar and whisk until all the dry ingredients are well combined 

Into the dry ingredients, pour the oil, buttermilk, vanilla, eggs and mix until a batter forms. If you don’t have buttermilk, simply create one by pouring 1 tablespoon of white vinegar into some milk to make up 1 cup. 

Pour the hot water into the coffee and mix. Then pour the coffee into the cake batter and start mixing immediately, so the batter doesn’t try to cook. 

Grease 2 cake pans with butter, and line them with baking paper. Use a scale to measure out equal parts of the batter into the pans. Raise the pans and tap a few times on the kitchen counter to get rid of air bubbles.

Bake this for 35 minutes in an oven, that has been preheating since 15 minutes ago.

Remove the cakes and place them onto a cooling rack until completely cooled down.

WHIPPED CREAM FROSTING

For this recipe, I opted for a whipped cream frosting. And this is not just because it is the fastest and easiest to make, but also because this frosting is very light, airy and not absurdly sweet. I usually opt for buttercream or meringue. But the day Chef Halima (a pastry instructor at the culinary school I intended), showed me whipped cream frosting, I instantly fell in love. I hate fondant because it is too sweet. Buttercream is still too heavy, even though you can manage the amount of sugar you put in it. But whipped cream frosting is just perfect, and I beg you to try it on your next recipe.

The only problem with whipped cream frosting is that, it does not have enough weight to hold more than 2 cake layers. The more you stack it, the more the whipped cream will fall apart. So, 1 or 2 layers maximum should work.
Another important thing I must talk about, is the brand of whipped cream powder you should buy. When you go to the market, there are different brands available. I’ve used different ones and the one I prefer and will recommend to my readers is Vizyon. To get your frosting, you’ll need:

• 200g Vizyon Whipped Cream Powder
• 250g very cold water
• A little condensed milk (optional)

In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the whipped cream powder and the cold water and beat on medium-high speed until the mixture becomes stiff.

You will know it is ready when you flip it upside down and it doesn’t fall. It has to remain stiff

The condensed milk is very optional, but I like to add 2-3 tablespoons of condensed milk to the frosting, just to make it more interesting.

Get your cake turntable and board ready and get to work. Apply a little frosting at the base of the cake board, and place 1 of the cakes. Trim the top, until it is leveled.

Apply the frosting generously and place the other cake on top

To your satisfaction, cover the entire cake with the rest of the frosting. To make it more fun, I like to bathe the entire cake with some good melted dark chocolate. In a double boiler, melt the chocolate with a little milk until it is liquid.

Sometimes, I dust the top with cocoa powder. My advice to you is: “just decorate it the way you like. Let me show you all the different amazing pictures I took

Hahaha😂😂 The pictures are so many and it’s better I stop here. Thank you so much for reading and, if this is your first time visiting this blog, you’re welcome. I’ll be happy to see you try this at home and give me feedback here in the comments section. Bye for now and vote wisely this weekend!❤️