Okay, so in this edition, I’m sharing with you the best recipe from the internet for my most favorite cake, which I have tried myself and the result was splendid. It is the only dessert I ever order anywhere I go. So here it goes:
Ingredients:
Dry Ingredients
- 2 2/3 cups / 400 g plain cake flour
- 2 tbsp / 10g cocoa powder, unsweetened
- 1 tsp / 5g baking soda / bi-carb soda, , NOT baking powder
- Pinch of salt
Wet Ingredients
- 1/2 cup / 115 g unsalted butter, softened
- 1 1/2 cups / 330 g caster white sugar
- 2 eggs, at room temperature
- 1 cup / 250ml vegetable oil
- 1 tsp white vinegar
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup / 250 ml buttermilk, at room temperature
- 2 1/2 tbsp red food colouring liquid (optional)
Frosting
- 400g Philadelphia Cream Cheese, block (or any soft kind but Kiri)
- 1 stick / 1/2 cup / 115g unsalted butter at room temperature
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 4 cups / 450 g soft icing sugar / powdered sugar sifted
INSTRUCTIONS:
- Preheat oven to 180C (all oven types). Butter 2 x 21cm / 8″ round cake pans (sides and base) and dust with cocoa powder.
- Sift the Dry Ingredients and whisk to combine in a bowl.
- Place butter and sugar in a bowl and beat with an electric beater or instand- mixer until smooth and well combined (use the paddle attachment if you’ll be using a stand mixer).
- Add eggs, one at a time, beating in between to combine. At first, it will look curdled – keep beating until it’s smooth.
- Add vegetable oil, vinegar, vanilla, buttermilk and red food colouring. Beat until combined and smooth.
- Add Dry Ingredients. Beat until just combined – some small lumps is ok, that’s better than over mixing.
- Divide batter between cake pans. Bake for 25 – 30 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. On the other hand, if you prefer to use 1 pan then bake for 45 minutes to an hour ensuring you cover the top of the pan with foil 30 minutes in.
- Rest for 10 minutes in the pan then turn out onto a cooling rack and allow to cool.
Frosting
- Beat together cream cheese, butter and vanilla for 3 minutes (this makes it really smooth and changes from yellow to almost white). Add icing sugar and beat for 2 minutes or until frosting is light and fluffy to your taste. If your frosting seems too runny (depends on the quality of cream cheese/ if the cream cheese was too soft), just add more icing sugar.
Frost Cake
- Cut the top off the cake using a serrated knife (to make the layers neat).
- Spread one cake with 1 1/2 cups of frosting. Top with the other cake. Spread top and sides with remaining frosting.
- Optional: Crumble offcuts and use to decorate the top rim and base of the cake.
