Chocolate Cake

Chocolate cake is one of the  easy and tasty cake recipe. Can be prepared for birthday parties. I learned to prepare this cake from one of my  friend Mrs.Anitha Sharma from Vadodara some 25 years back. My children love this cake. All the ingredients are of 200 gms. No need to beat eggs or cream the butter to prepare this cake. Put everything in to a bowl and mix for a minute and pour into a tin and bake for 45 minutes. It is very important to take all the ingredients at room temperature.

preparation time: 15 Minutes
Cooking time: 1 Hour
Serves: 10 to 15 Servings

Ingredients:

1. All Purpose Flour (Maida ): 200 gms
2. Baking powder -2 teaspoon
3. Cocoa powder -2 Tablespoon
4. Sugar: 200 gms(powdered)
5. Butter:200 gms
6. Eggs: 2 to 3
7. Vanilla essence: 1 teaspoon
8. Cashew nut,Almonds,Walnuts: ½ cup(finely chopped)                                            

For Icing  decoration :

1. Sweetened Cocoa powder: ½ cup (unsweetened cocoa powder can also be used)
2. Cream: 3 Tablespoons
3. Butter: 1 Tablespoon

Procedure:

1. Grease a baking dish with some butter and dust with some maida and keep aside.
2. Sieve maida , cocoa powder and baking powder 2 to 3 times.
3. Mix  butter, powdered sugar,eggs, maida mixture  and  fold gently for  mixing.
4. Pour the mixture into the greased baking dish. 
   

   
5. Sprinkle chopped nuts on top.
6. Bake in a preheated oven for 45 minutes at 180 degrees centigrade.
7. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on a wire rack.

For icing :

1. Preparing this icing is  very very easy and also very little cream and butter are used.
2. Heat 2 to 3 tablespoons of cream , 1 teaspoon butter and ½ cup of sweetened cocoa(if unsweetened cocoa powder is used 1 to 2 teaspoons of granulated sugar can be added) in a small pan and warm for 1 minute.
3. Pour the icing mixture on top of the cake and spread evenly with a spatula or knife.
4. Allow to set the icing for 2 hours in room temperature. It can  also be set by keeping in the fridge for 30 minutes.Dust some castor sugar on top and serve.
   

Note:

If butter is not at room temperature, beat sugar and butter first to a creamy texture and add other ingredients later for better results.