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...