Moist Chocolate Cake Revamped

This very simple and super tasty moist chocolate cake is really one of my personal favorites. Its a great treat and always a winner among my mates and family. It probably isn't the most picture perfect cake that you will ever bake, but the taste and sugar rush totally makes up for it! WARNING! Do not feed to children under the age of 12. You will create hyper little demons! This cake is super addictive and it can be baked for all occasions like a birthday party, wedding, wake ceremony, days of compulsive overeating or even early parole.

So here’s my famous ‘Moist Chocolate Cake Revamped’ or how I like to call it ‘Nat Koek’. Try to avoid the sexual connotation as I know the name has a raging pun. The name really does imply rich moistness as you have never had it before. I am not talking: “Ohhh that’s nice and moist.” NO!! I am talking: “Oh my god I want to stuff my face with this cake, super moistness!”

Bake it, eat it, cry and eat some more! Most importantly enjoy it! Would love to hear your feedback!

Moist Chocolate Cake Revamped - 

Ingredients:

4 eggs separated - Make sure your eggs are fresh.

12.5ml baking powder

250ml cake flour

2.5ml salt

250ml castor sugar – “Very important you do not be a smartass and use regular sugar here!”

125ml sunflower oil

60ml cacao

125ml boiling water

Sauce:

410g Nestle Ideal evaporated milk

125ml Sugar

15ml Margarine

Topping:

200g Nestle Treat Caramel

200g Dark Chocolate
200ml Thin cream
3 tbs of strong freshly brewed espresso

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas 4

2. Whip the egg whites and 2.5ml of the baking powder together until stiff.

3. Sift the cake flour, salt, castor sugar and the rest of your baking powder together.

4. Beat the egg yolks and sunflower oil together and add to the sifted dry ingredients.

5. Add the boiling water to your cacao and whisk until nicely dissolved. Add to sifted dry ingredients.

6. Beat all of the dry and wet ingredients together until smooth or until the sugar has dissolved.

7. Carefully fold in your egg whites.

8. Pour the cake mixture into an oven proof dish, 35cm x 22cm

9. Bake for 40-45 minutes

Sauce: 

      10. Add the evaporated milk, sugar and margarine into a sauce pan and bring to a boil. 

            Be careful that it doesn’t burn. After it has boiled you can take it off the heat.

      11.  Let the cake slightly cool before you pour the sauce over.

         

       Topping:

      12. While you wait for your cake to completely cool down you can make the chocolate ganache. Add the cream to a saucepan and bring to a boil. Add the hot cream and espresso to the chocolate and stir until it melts and you have one consistency.

      

      13. After your cake has completely cooled spread the ganache all over and place in refrigerator to cool and set completely. After the ganache has set spread a generous amount of the caramel all over the set chocolate ganache. 

       You should have a very moist chocolate cake with a chocolate ganache and caramel topping. 

Serve eat and enjoy! 

10 Top Cooking Tips of the Week

1.

Microwave a lemon for 15 seconds and double the juice you get before squeezing. 

2.

It's important to let a roast beef, pork, lamb or poultry, sit a little while before carving. That allows the juices to retreat back into the meat. If you carve a roast too soon, much of its goodness will spill out onto the carving board. 

3.

When separating eggs, break them into a funnel. The whites will go through leaving the yolk intact in the funnel. 

4.

No "curly" bacon for breakfast when you dip it into cold water before frying. 

5.

Don't throw out all that leftover wine: Freeze into ice cubes for future use in casseroles and sauces. 

6.

Cheese won't harden if you butter the exposed edges before storing. 

7.

If you have a problem opening jars: Try using latex dishwashing gloves. They give a no-slip grip that makes opening jars easy. 

8.

When using rice, keep in mind that 1 cup of uncooked long-grain white rice makes 3 cups cooked. 

9.

You can keep pasta, custards, and milk from boiling over by coating the inside of the pot lid with vegetables oil. 

10.

Add a small amount of cooking oil to the water before adding pasta. It reduces the amount of pasta sticking together.

Healthy Eats Wednesday - Mediterranean Vegetables With Goat's Cheese & Penne with Carrot, Beetroot and Ginger Juice

I recently got satellite TV and I have to admit I am completely glued to the Cooking Channel. If my ass could shoot roots I would blossom and thrive in front of the tube. Saying that I am addicted is an understatement. There is not a show I don’t miss, maybe one, ‘Hungry Girl’. I think it’s the biggest load of bollocks on the network. Most of you have probably seen her show or heard of her. “Making every day meals healthy and delicious.” Bah! The bitch lies! Do NOT trust her overrated pallet!  It might be healthy but it isn’t tasty.

Hungry Girl's version of chicken nuggets is a piece of chicken rolled in crushed up All Bran Flakes and baked! NASTY! Even her famous ‘Hungry Girl’ traditional Italian pasta is something yet to be desired.
It’s basically a plate of cooked pasta sprayed with a bit of tomato juice… Sacrilege!!! I swear when she came up with that recipe age old Italian cooks just suddenly dropped dead or turned around in their graves!

Let’s be realistic for a second, it might be healthy to eat like that but no one can keep up or want to eat like that for the rest of their life. You will snap, develop murderous tendencies to kill your neighbour’s barking dog, divorce your husband or even worse speed to the shop and choke down a huge burger or chocolate. You know who you are!

I believe you don’t need to change your lifestyle and force yourself to eat crap in order to look good or lose weight. Let’s be honest eating healthy sucks! The trick is to explore different types of food and find a healthy dish that you love and are willing to make part of your daily meals.   

I am still on my own personal little quest to find healthy dishes that I love and are willing to replace with unhealthy ones. It’s a painstaking process but finding a dish that you love and happens to be healthy is a great triumph! 

Here is two personal favourites of mine. It took me a while to get it right but the end result was amazing and I have completely fallen in love with it. The best part of this dish and drink is that it is super tasty but also very HEALTHY. Have a look see and tell me what you think! 

MEDITERRANEAN VEGETABLES with Goat's Cheese & Penne

Ingredients: Serves 1

60g dried penne

1 red pepper, deseeded and cut into bite-sized chunks
1 small courgette, trimmed and cut into bite-sized slices
1 red onion, peeled and cut into wedges
1tsp olive oil
12 cherry tomatoes, halved
6 stoned black olives, halved
35g goat's cheese, crumbled
Freshly ground black pepper
Salt
few fresh basil leaves, to garnish

Dressing
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp torn fresh basil leaves


1. Bring a large saucepan of lightly salted water to the boil. Add the pasta, bring back to the boil and cook for 8-10 minutes, until the pasta is tender but still firm to the bite.

2. Arrange the pepper, courgette and onion on a non-stick baking tray, then brush with the oil and season to taste with freshly ground black pepper and salt. Grill for about 5 minutes. Turn the pieces and continue grilling for an additional 5 minutes, or until they are tender.

3. When pasta is cooked, drain well and transfer to a serving bowl. Stir in the cherry tomatoes, olives and chargrilled vegetables with their oil and juices.

4. Beat together the dressing ingredients and stir into the pasta. Crumble over the goat's cheese, then garnish with basil and serve. 

An early morning or late afternoon energy booster!  

CARROT, BEETROOT AND GINGER JUICE

Ingredients: Serves 2

5 large carrots, unpeeled, roughly chopped

160g beetroot,, trimmed, unpeeled, quartered

3cm piece fresh ginger

1. Pop all of the ingredients into a juicer and enjoy!

Eggy Manic Monday Madness! - How to Poach an Egg The Julia Child Way

For this next technique I have consulted my personal teacher’s cookbook, ‘Mastering The Art of French Cooking’ by Julia Child on how to perfectly poach an egg.

‘A poached egg is one that has been dropped without its shell into a pan of barely simmering liquid and cooked for about 4 minutes until the white is set but the yolk remains liquid. It should be oval in shape and the white completely masks the yolk.’ – Julia Child

I wouldn’t recommend attempting this free-floating traditional egg poaching method for the inexperienced and fragile of heart. It is rated as being the most difficult cooking technique. It takes allot of trial and error but the end result is nothing less than magical, in presentation and taste. If you think you got what it takes then try a poached egg next time instead of a fried greasy one.

It is very important that your eggs are fresh. Don’t try and cut corners and use your month old stale eggs. Trust me you will fail miserably and end up with mess.

How to Poach an Egg by Julia Child

To transfer the egg from the shell to the water you can either break it directly into the water or break it into a saucer, tilt the saucer directly over the water, and slip the egg in.

1. Pour 4-5 cm of water into a 20 to 25 cm skillet and add one tablespoon of vinegar per litre of water. Bring to a simmer. Vinegar will help the egg hold its shape.

2. Break the egg and holding it as closely over the water as possible, let it fall in. Immediately and gently push the white over the yolk with wooden spoon for 2 – 3 seconds. Maintain the water at the barest simmer and proceed with the other eggs in the same manner.  

After 4 minutes, remove the egg with a skimmer and test with your vinegar. The white should be set and the yolk soft to the touch.  Place the egg in cold water. This will wash off the vinegar and stop the cooking process.

3. To reheat place the cold poached eggs in salted hot water for about half a minute to heat them through.  Remove with a slotted spoon and serve.  

Eggy Manic Monday Madness! - How to Scramble an Egg

Scrambled eggs are often the very first dish we learn how to make, yet for many it’s one of the hardest dishes to master. Like a great piece of fillet everyone has a different ideal of how it should be like. I can’t help but smile when I’m served a plate of tender golden yellow curds that somehow manage to defy contradiction by being light and fluffy, yet rich and decadent.

Over the years I've seen all kinds of tricks and potions suggested to get those fluffy scrambled eggs. Some rely on additives like baking powder while others will tell you to whisk the eggs until they are foamy and full of air. These techniques do incorporate air into your eggs, it works a little too well and makes your scrambled eggs spongy rather than fluffy. I don’t know about you, but if I wanted to eat spongy eggs I’d rather go have a piece of cheap Pick `n Pay sponge cake. No more embarrassing, tasteless and failed medieval quests for the sacred scroll on how to prepare the perfect scrambled eggs. 

So here is my method for perfect scrambled eggs every time.

1. Lightly whisk your eggs, add a pinch of salt and whisk until all your ingredients are just combined and the mixture has one consistency.

2. Heat a non-stick skillet and add your olive oil, butter or spray with Spray `n Cook. Pour in the egg mixture and let it sit for approximately 20 second without stirring it. Stir with a wooden spoon, lifting and folding it over from the bottom of the skillet. Let it sit for another 10 seconds then stir and fold again.

Repeat this process until your eggs are softly set and slightly running in places, then remove from the heat and leave for a few seconds to finish cooking. Give a final stir and serve immediately or your eggs will go cold and rubbery. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper!