Chocolate Mud Cake

Recipe Courtesy: Thomas Antony Palathingal

Dear Diamond

We all know who is really a girl’s best friend!!

Yours sincerely

Chocolate Cake

Chefs are known to closely guard their professional secrets but that just doesnt seem to be the trait followed by my baby brother, Thomachan, who is a pastry chef. He believes that he learned the art because someone else was selfless enough to share, so why shouldn’t he do the same. Just as much as he can make gastronomic wonders, the grounded person that he is, knows how to create delicacies with the available resources. He is very mindful of the fact that a normal household kitchen wouldn’t be having any high tech gadgets.

You could identify the same simplicity in this recipe that he has shared. Please don’t get overwhelmed by the numbers. Being a chef, he naturally works with large and precise quantities. So the original recipe was 4 times the quantity using 10 eggs. His suggestion was to use quarter of the quantity for a 9 inch cake.

The goodness of pure butter and the intense flavour of the chocolate could be tasted with every bite. It is moist and airy and perfect for any sort of frosting or ganache. As chocolate cakes are usually made for some occassion at home, my children have started finding random reasons to bake this recipe. The most recent one is that it is their friend’s birthday!

Ingredients

Unsalted butter – 187.5 gms ( 2)

Sugar – 281 gms ( 1 and 1/3 cup)

Water – 234 gms ( approx 1 cup )

Dark chocolate – 93gms (approx 1/2 cup)

Eggs – 3 medium. sized ones ( If doubling recipe, use 5 eggs)

Plain Flour – 200gms ( 1. 5 cups)

Cocoa Powder – 25 gms (1/4 cup)

Baking Soda – 8.75 gms (1/2 tbsp)

Method

Grease and dust a 9 inch baking dish or two 6 inch ones. Preheat the oven at 180 degrees.

In a saucepan, add the butter, sugar and water.

Bring it to a boil . Take it off the flame.

Add the chocolate and let it blend well.

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Set it aside and pour it into a big mixing bowl and let the chocolate mixture cool down well.

Now add the eggs, one by one . Beat / whisk it well each time using an electric beater.

In another bowl, add all the dry ingredients such as flour, cocoa powder and baking soda.

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Sift the dry ingredients to make sure that its mixed uniformly and that there are no lumps.

Fold in the ingredients in three part. You may use the the electric beater to fold in the flour at a very low speed also.

Pour this batter into the prepared baking dish (this is a very runny batter).

Bake at 180 for 50 minutes for a 9 inch pan until the skewer comes clean . You would notice that if the cake is cooked, it will come off the sides.

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For 6 inch pans, it takes roughly 40-45 minutes.

For cup cakes or sheet cakes, you need to bake it only for 20 minutes.