Birthday Cake

"Let's face it, a nice creamy chocolate cake does a lot for a lot of people; it does for me." 
~Audrey Hepburn


Shraddha's birthday surprise calls for a homemade cake, especially since she asked for one. :)


It was after 12 in the middle of the night, when I finally decided to start the cake. Me and my procrastination. *sigh. Then, to my horror, there was only ONE egg in the fridge! Way too late for any shop to be open or for me to be wandering the streets looking for open shops and way too late to be knocking on neighbours doors. Then I found 2 more eggs that were part of my Brownie Points ingredients. Relief. 


I chose a pretty simple recipe of Nigella Lawson- Chocolate Fudge Cake (found in her book, 'Nigella Bites') The recipe called for 3 eggs. What a save! But then I decided to make half a recipe. So all that was unnecessary hullabaloo.


I adapted the recipe here and there, for lack of ingredients and laziness to measure accurately. This is the original recipe.


My adapted recipe: Beat vigorously together 90g of melted butter and 3/4 cup sugar. Add 60ml of oil and 150ml of cold water. Sift 2 cups flour, 5 tablespoons cocoa powder, 1 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp baking soda and half a pinch of salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients beating at a slow speed. In another bowl, whisk together 2 eggs, 1tsp of vanilla and 75ml of curd. Add egg mixture to cake batter and mix together gently.

Pour into 2 buttered and lined round cake pans and bake till toothpick comes out clean at 180 degree centigrade. It takes about an hour.


I had to wait till morning to finish the icing. I was too sleepy to wait for it to cool. We planned to leave early to surprise her, but I wasn't the only one delaying the plans, so managed to finish the cake and not have everyone waiting for me. 


For the icing- same recipe used in Peanut Chocolate Cake. But this time I didn't measure and kept adding butter/icing sugar/milk/blue colouring till I got the right consistency.


I used white icing for the sandwich layer and to cover sides and top. Then piped blue '22' with small starlets around the top edge.


I initially planned a much cooler design- polka dots using different coloured icing, but time only allowed me to do this simpler icing. Made a few mistakes and it didn't come out that neatly- my rustic touch. 

It suffered slight injuries on the way to her house- these bumpy roads. But chocolate cake need not look pretty. Next time I'll make rich ganache/fudge icing instead of sugary butter cream icing.