A Chocolate Cake...

My birthday was a couple of weeks ago and for me a yummy birthday cake is a very very integral part of the special day. This year, had this particular urge to bake my own cake...and that's exactly what i did. Found this recipe online for chocolate cake that's so easy to make, and really really yummy too.

You will need

• 2 cups boiling water
• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 2 1/4 cups sugar (the recipe called for white sugar, but i used soft brown sugar and it came out ok)
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla essence

Note: This recipe makes 3 9-inch round cakes, so you may decide to tweak the recipe and maybe half the quantities for a smaller cake. I made a sandwich cake, so basically after baking the separate cakes, i placed one on top of the other, with frosting as the filling.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius ( Gas mark 4). Grease the baking tin and set aside.

2. Pour boiling water over cocoa powder, mix until smooth and set aside to cool.

3. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

4. Next cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Then add the eggs, one at a time, mixing completely in-between. Stir in the vanilla essence.

5. Now add the flour mixture and cocoa mixture in bits, alternately, mixing in as you add.

6. If u have 3 separate tins, then spread batter between tins, otherwise you would have to bake one cake at a time.

7. Bake in preheated oven for 25-30 minutes. To check if cooked, a skewer put in cake should come out clean.

8. Allow to cool completely before frosting- you can choose whichever flavour of frosting you prefer and prepare from scratch or cheat like me and buy ready-to-spread frosting from the supermarkets.

Enjoy your cake!!! Here's what happened to my slice 2 seconds later...

Geli's Jollof Spaghetti

Ok, i know i promised this recipe a long long time ago...sorry for the delay guys, and the really long time lapse since our last post. Apparently, being a 1st year Doctor and blogging don't go well...but i'll work on that soon! How's everyone doing?
So spaghetti is something i love very very much...it's kinda the only kind of pasta i can have, well i guess noodles too, but i prefer spaghetti. Macaroni, Linguine, Fettucine....and all the rest are just not for me. I coined the name Jollof Spaghetti because it's kinda like Jollof rice, but just with spaghetti...and i've been calling it that since i was a little girl...lol
So let's get right to it then, shall we...

You will need

Spaghetti (1 500g pack) I kinda prefer the capellini variant, but again, that's up to you
6 medium sized tomatoes
6 small red peppers (scotch bonnets) Again, i love pepper, so please feel free to reduce, or even increase the quantity.
2 tablespoons tomato paste
Vegetable/Olive oil, 4 tablespoons
1 medium sized onion
1 bouillon cube ( i like Maggi Chicken)
2 cups meat broth (whichever meat you decide to use, either beef, pork, chicken, should have been cooked beforehand, and the broth saved.)
2 cups water
Salt to taste
Sausages, preferably pork, cut into little chunks
1 lb beef/pork/chicken (already cooked), cut into chunks

Directions

1. Blend tomatoes, pepper, and onion. Keep aside.
2. In a large saucepan, heat up oil till hot. Then add blended tomato mixture and the tomato paste, and fry till it's reduced by about half...for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Next, add the 2 cups of meat broth, and the 2 cups of water. Allow to simmer for about 5 minutes.
Note: If you do not have any meat broth, you can add 4 cups of water, and then a little extra of the bouillon cube.
4. Add the bouillon cube, and some salt to taste.
5. Next, add the spaghetti to the mixture. The fluid level should be just above the spaghetti, but you should still be able to see the spaghetti. Swirl it around a bit to prevent clumps.
Note: It's better to add less water and gradually increase if needed, than adding a lot of water and then ending up with very mushy spaghetti. Like with cooking in general, less is always better, because it's always easier to add more.
6. Add the chopped up sausages and meat, cover the saucepan, and allow to simmer for about 10-15 minutes, on medium heat.
7. Mix with a wooden spoon, taste to see if spaghetti too hard/soft.
If still hard, u can add some more liquid, ad cook on a low heat till soft. If u add more water, remember to check to see if extra seasoning is needed.
If the spaghetti is soft, but there is still a lot of liquid in the pan, u can turn up the heat so the liquid evaporates quickly, and the spaghetti does not become mushy.
8. By this time, spaghetti should be cooked. Mix altogether.

Serve with a topping of grated Parmesan cheese (optional).

Note: There are so many ways of tweaking this, you could use corned beef, tinned fish, whatever, so far as you get the basic recipe down, anything else is possible.

Enjoy!!!