Chocolate Cake!

Today I woke up and felt like baking a chocolate cake... so i did. I have ton's of cook books with recipes for chocolate cakes but I have made them all before, I wanted to try something different.  Recently I have become a coffee addict. I stumbled upon the idea of including espresso powder in the cake I was intrigued. Although I have seen some similar recipes floating around the internet, including espresso powder I have tried to free ball this and put my own twist on it. It definitely isn't your conventional chocolate cake recipe. I have genuinely made ALOT of chocolate cake's in my day, but this recipe is without a doubt the best so far and pretty simple surprisingly. (Also it doesn't actually contain any chocolate, just cocoa powder) This recipe is much easier than previous tested recipes as there's no more chopping chocolate into chunks, the cocoa powder just goes straight in bowl and whisk away. My whole family are sold on this cake therefore I of course had to share the recipe with you. Send me pics of your chocolate cake by using the hashtag #BakingWithKevin on Insta, Twitter and Facebook. 

You will need
 2X 8inch baking tins greased with butter (P.s you can go bigger on the cake tins if you prefer a flatter cake)

Ingredients  
450g Plain Flour

450g Caster Sugar

170g Cocoa Powder

1 Teaspoon Espresso Powder

2 Teaspoons Baking Powder

1 1/2 Teaspoons Bicarbonate of Soda

1 Teaspoon Salt

2 Eggs

1/2 pint or 240ml Milk

120 ml Vegetable oil (Sunflower or Olive oil will do)

2 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract

1/2 pint or 240ml Boiling Water

Method  
Pre-heat oven to 180c and grease the two baking tins with butter, dust lightly with plain flour.

In a bowl combine dry ingredients, flour, caster sugar, cocoa powder, espresso powder, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Mix until well combined.
Separately mix 2 eggs, milk, oil and vanilla extract in jug.
If using a electric mixer place setting on slow and pour in bowl gradually until well combined.

If not, pour small amount of wet ingredients in bowl and whisk until combined, continued till all wet and dry ingredients well combined. Slowly add boiling water to mixture and mix until well combined.
 (At this point cake batter will be watery, do not be alarmed) Evenly pour the mixture into the two prepared cake tins and pop in oven for 30- 35 mins.  
Once done, check cake is cooked by sticking skewer into middle of cake and skewer is comes out clean. Allows 5-10 mins before taking cake out of tins Remove from tins and allow to completely cool before icing.

Butter cream frosting

Ingredients 170g Unsalted Butter

113g Cocoa Powder

570g Icing Sugar

100ml Milk 1 Teaspoon

Vanilla Extract

1/4 Teaspoon Espresso powder (optional)

Method
Combine cocoa powder and butter together until well combined  
Add icing sugar and vanilla extract and mix well. If using espresso powder mix it in now. Slowly add a little milk at a time until right texture achieved, if frosting is to dry add a little more milk. Place 1/4 of frosting in the middle of the cake and smear the rest around the top ad sides of cake

Kevin. X