If you are very bad at baking and often have failed attempts when making a cake then this is the perfect recipe for you.
We have made it so many times and it has never failed. Even in a different kitchens in different countries.
It is our secret weapon miracle cake.
The beauty of this cake is also that the longer it sits in the fridge the more moist it becomes.
You might have noticed from the photo we have a beautiful glass serving plate. It’s not our best one, it’s our only one. You might have the same one and not even know it. Many years ago our microwave oven broke and we decided to keep the glass plate as a serving plate for cake. If you don’t have a serving plate you can use your microwave oven’s plate. Just don’t break it.
What you need for the cake
- 3 large eggs
- 240g Self raising flour
- 75g Cocoa
- 10ml Baking powder
- 15ml Bicarbonate of soda
- 320g sugar
- 5ml vanilla essence
- 250ml Mayonnaise
- 330ml Water
What you need for the sauce
- 1 cup of water or espresso coffee
- 1 1/2 cups of brown sugar
- 1 1/2 cups of cocoa powder
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- 6 table spoons of butter cut into pieces
- 1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla essence
Pre heat your oven at 180 degrees Celsius.
Combine the sugar, vanilla essence and eggs into the mixing bowl. Beat at a high speed until nice and creamy.
Sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda together in a separate bowl. We have heard its best to sift dry ingredients together 3 times to make sure everything is well incorporated.
First add some (not all) of the dry mixture to the egg mixture and some (not all) of the water.
Mix it together. Repeat this 3 times until everything is added together.
Mix well and then pour into a greased cake pan.
We prefer to use a round cake pan with a hole in the middle. The main reason for this is that we can cut more pieces out of one cake without the middle crumbling apart. We have in the past cut 24 pieces out of one cake, with a scoop of ice cream this was still a good portion for our guests.
Bake for 30 to 35 min.
Preparing the sauce
In a saucepan heat the water/coffee with the brown sugar until the sugar is dissolved.
Add the sifted cocoa powder and salt until the mixture is smooth.
Add the butter and vanilla.
Whisk until the butter is melted.
We keep the chocolate sauce in the pan and reheat it just before serving. You can pour the chocolate sauce over the whole cake or cut it into servings and pour the chocolate sauce over each serving. We have found that this is too much sauce for the cake, but if you do not use everything it is great to keep in the fridge to enjoy over some ice cream.
This is one suggestion for a topping. It is nice as you can serve it hot over the cake and with vanilla ice cream it gives a very nice hot / cold contrast.
We have however tried many other toppings which also worked well on the cake.
Here are some suggestions.
Whipped cream mixed with caramel.
Whipped cream mixed with Berry Pie filling.
Actually anything goes. Feel free to experiment.
Because we find this cake to be so user friendly we have also added red food colouring to make a red velvet cake – although we do have a separate recipe for a genuine red velvet cake.
