OK, let’s take a minute here…. I know… it’s January and again, I’m going against the grain…But I had a VERY good reason to make this cake this week!
For a very close friends birthday, who loves chocolate, it was really the least I could do… And have I told you about Polly’s Chocolate cake.. from Manila? yes I think I’ve mentioned it before… otherwise known as “gas station cake” by my family… due to the fact that it was sold at a gas station before it got famous… this dark, rich, decadent chocolate cake is everything you want and need in THE celebration cake. It’s silky and not overly sweet… it’s moist and creamy but not in a sickly way… and the icing, well, that’s the special part… I really can’t explain it in more detail.. you just have to eat this thing to understand!
This is not for the faint hearted… it’s not a cake that you can really get up and go for another piece… I mean, you COULD but it would be TOO sinful…Now warning: there are no fancy ingredients, it’s packed with stuff that’s NOT good for you.. and it’s nothing to do with vegan, gluten free or wholemeal… it’s just a lot of fat that makes it just so so indulgent… I’m sorry!!
- Dry Ingredients
- 2 cups All Purpose Flour
- 1 and a half cups Sugar
- 3/4 cups Cocoa Powder
- 2 teaspoons Baking Soda
- 1 teaspoon Salt
- Wet Ingredients
- 2 Eggs
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1 cup sunflower or vegetable oil
- 3/4 cup good quality mayonnaise
- 1 Tablespoon Instant Coffee dissolved in 1 cup warm Water
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
- Icing
- 2 cans (800 gr) Condensed Milk
- 4 oz 70% dark chocolate
- 2 Tablespoons Cocoa Powder
- pinch Rock Salt
- 2 Tablespoons unsalted Butter
- Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Prepare your cake pans. I used 2 round 8″ spring form pans. Line the bottoms with parchment paper.Grease the sides of the pan and sprinkle flour until the sides are covered with flour.
- Combine dry ingredients. Whisk with a wire whisk to remove any lumps.
- Beat eggs, milk, oil and mayonnaise until well incorporated. Add coffee-water mixture and vanilla. Mix gently. Do not over beat this, we don’t want it to be too airy.
- Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients 1/4 cup at a time stirring gently, just enough to incorporate the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.
- When all the dry ingredients are mixed into the wet ingredients, transfer to your baking tins. Give it a gentle tap just to remove some air.
- Pop in the oven and bake for 40-45 mins minutes or until inserted toothpick comes out clean.
- Cool the cakes on a wire rack for 30 minutes before removing the cake form the pan.
- for the Icing
- Combine the condensed milk, chocolate and cocoa powder in a pan. Heat over low heat with continuous stirring for 7/8 minutes. Add rock salt and stir for another 2 minutes. Then add the butter and stir for another 1 minute, all in all a 10 minute process. Pour over cakes while still hot.
- PLace the first cake on your cake stand, and cut a few pieces of parchment paper to place around the bottom to protect from dripping. This is an unusual cake as it requires the cake to still be quite warm when you put the icing on top of it. The reason for this is that the icing tends to thicken upon cooling. So to make it easier to spread, the cakes need to be pretty warm.
- Take a little more than a quarter of the icing and pour onto the centre of the first cake and spread with a spatula, towards the sides.
- Place the second cake on top of this and press down slightly. If you find that the cake has a dome shape int he centre you could cut it off so that you have a flatter top.
- spread the remaining icing over the top, little by little, spreading it out to the sides and allowing it to fall off, keep spreading it evening with an offset spatula or a flat knife…
- Decorate as you wish… I left it simple as I think that this cake really isn’t about how it looks as much as the way it tastes!
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