Eggless Chocolate cake

You always have to have a chocolate cake recipe that you can trust and I have two! This is a lovely moist fluffy chocolate cake whereas my other one is a bit more fudgey (I will put up soon). I went to a friends house a few weekends ago for an annual weekend party with lots of my university friends. There were 40 of us sleeping is his house, you can just picture the packed sleeping arrangements. The weekend was excellent as usual and my contribution was two cakes for 40 people. I doubled this recipe and baked it in a 30cmx20cm roasting tin!

Eggless Chocolate Cake

190g self raising flour
85g cocoa powder
1 tsp  baking soda
pinch salt
225g sugar
120ml vegetable oil
250ml cold water
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp vinegar

1. Preheat the oven to 190C and grease a baking tin (8 x12in)
2. Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt in to a bowl
3. Make 2 wells in the dry mixture. Put the oil in one well, the cold water and vanilla essence in another. Stir together by scooping the edges of the well into the wet ingredients.
4. Stir in the vinegar, try not to over mix. Put the cake in the oven straight away - the vinegar will react with the baking soda and this makes the cake rise.
5. Bake for 30 mins and cover in chocolate buttercream. Other toppings you can try for a different taste are:

• Raspberry icing
• Vanilla buttercream/Vanilla cream cheese icing (recipe below with the blueberry cake)
• Coffee buttercream (recipe below with mocha cupcakes)
• Whip some double cream, smother over the cake and cover with strawberries or other berries for a bit of a tang against the chocolate

Chocolate buttercream

175g butter
125g cocoa powder
650g icing sugar
150ml milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Put all ingredients in a bowl and cream together. It’s best to “smoosh” the mixture together against the side of the bowl so the powder ingredients don’t fly everywhere.

2. If you have an electric whisk, then whisk it up fast and for as long as possible to make the icing nice and fluffy.

Yum!