Rich Chocolate Cake

This was was made for anta's b'day.

INGREDIENTS FOR CAKE
185g butter (again we used the regular pasteurised butter)
2 tsp vanilla essence
1 3/4 cups castor sugar (we just used plain sugar, ground it in a processor)
3 eggs
2 cups self raising flour (go back to the previous recipe - 1 tsp baking powder to 1 cup processed flour / maida)
2/3 cup cocoa
1 cup water

INGREDIENTS FOR CHOCOLATE ICING
90g dark chocolate
30g butter
1 cup icing sugar (again since we ran out of it we used regular sugar in powdered form)
2 tbsp water (i think we added more water than that - just went by feel of the icing)

TO MAKE CAKE
Combine butter, vanilla essence, sugar, eggs, sifted flour, cocoa and water in a large bowl and beat at low speed with an electric mixer till combined and then at medium speed for 3 min. (for a lil while the batter appeared like it had curdled but then it turned out ok)
Grease a pan and pour in the batter.
Bake at 180deg C for approx 1 1/2 hours. Stand for 5 min before removing to cool.
Once cold, spread the icing.

CHOCOLATE ICING
Melt Chocolate and butter in a bowl over hot water (we used one big bowl with hot water over which we put a smaller bowl)
Gradually stir in the icing sugar and slowly mix the hot water to make a spreadable consistency. We used more water (around 3-4 tbsp) to make it pourable consistency. Then we poured the icing gradually to make parallel lines over the cake to gradually ice the entire cake and let it drip off the sides.

NOTE - another experiment tried by sanju was to put some of the extra batter into small steel bowl (katori) with a piece of cadbury's dairy milk inside. Turned out good as well.

Frosted choc-orange cake

OH YES... WE ARE BACK.
Its been a long time, and thanks to mave, who sent some amazing baking books with ma, we are now back to our baking ways. This time it is not a question of need or requirement as it was in Chabua, now it is the foodie in us who is baking cakes. This first one turned out amazing. Thanks again Mave.

Frosted Choc-Orange Cake

INGREDIENTS FOR CAKE
125g butter (we used regular Amul pasteurized butter)
1 tbsp grated orange rind (this gives an amazing twang to the cake)
3 eggs
1 3/4 cups self raising flour (for us indians - maida and baking powder in the proportion of 1 cup maida : 2 tsp baking powder. sift the mixture together)
1 1/3 cups castor sugar (we just ground the sugar in the mixie)
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 cup orange juice (we used 'Real' Orange juice from the tetra pack)
1/4 cup water

TO MAKE THE CAKE
Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Beat at low speed till all the ingredients are combined; increase speed to medium and beat till the colour changes and the mixture becomes smooth.
Pour into greased pan and bake at 180 degC for about 1 hour. Remove, let stand for 5 min and then remove from pan to cool further.

INGREDIENTS FOR ICING
100 g cream (we used pre-sweetened cream from a bakery, so we cant give you how much sugar to use, so you can go by the recipe that we had and substitute the sweetened cream with 60g of butter and 1 1/2 cups of icing sugar)
1 tbsp grated Orange rind
2 tbsp milk
1 tbsp cocoa

TO ICE THE CAKE
Beat the butter and rind in a small bowl until light and fluffy, gradually beat in the icing sugar and milk. Divide the frosting in half, stir in sifted cocoa into half and mix well. In the other half, add orange essence and a little orange colour (if you want it to look more colourful).
Top the cake with spoonfuls of orange and chocolate icing, swirling the iceing with a knife to give a marbled effect.