First Bake of Year 2010 - Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Cake

Welcome year 2010! I stopped baking & blogging since school holidays in Nov 2009. Lazy! Haha. Mainly due to I was busy holidaying during Nov & Dec. And when the year started, gosh, I was never been so busy before. This is mainly due to both my boys study at new schools this year - Caden in nursery class at Yuk Yu Kindergarten and Jaden is in Primary 1 at SJK(C) Chung Hwa Likas. Just sending & fetching them to/from schools, to beat the traffic jam itself is a challenging job. On top of that, I was not fully recovered from my cough/flu since Dec 2009. Very, very busy & tiring. Finally last weekend I managed to find some time in a Sunday afternoon. This cake has been in my top of the "must try out" list. I tried to look for Hershey cocoa powder in KK but could not find it until i went to Singapore during X'mas and managed to buy 1 box from there. However, after my Singapore trip, my friend told me that can buy it at Merdeka Supermarket. And it costs slightly cheaper than Singapore Dollars. Sigh! Anyway, I gave it a try and it turned out to be one of my favourite cakes!

It's so moist that I need to double layer the cup cakes.


See how moist the cake is!

I tried the cup cake version. Let's look at the ingredients & steps:

Ingredients:

• 2 cups sugar (I put 1-3/4 cups. Still very sweet for me. Next time should reduce to 1.5 cups only)
  
• 1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup boiling water
• "PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" CHOCOLATE FROSTING(recipe follows)

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350°F or 180°C. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans.

2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.

3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost with "PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" CHOCOLATE FROSTING. 10 to 12 servings.

VARIATIONS:
ONE-PAN CAKE: Grease and flour 13x9x2-inch baking pan. Heat oven to 350° F. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 35 to 40 minutes. Cool completely. Frost.

THREE LAYER CAKE: Grease and flour three 8-inch round baking pans. Heat oven to 350°F. Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake 30 to 35 minutes. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost.

BUNDT CAKE: Grease and flour 12-cup Bundt pan. Heat oven to 350°F. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 50 to 55 minutes. Cool 15 minutes; remove from pan to wire rack. Cool completely. Frost.

CUPCAKES: Line muffin cups (2-1/2 inches in diameter) with paper bake cups. Heat oven to 350°F. Fill cups 2/3 full with batter. Bake 22 to 25 minutes. Cool completely. Frost. About 30 cupcakes.


"PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" CHOCOLATE FROSTING (I omitted this part coz i think the cake is sweet enough.)

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine
2/3 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency. Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla. About 2 cups frosting.

Tips for Marvelous Muffins

Found some helpful links in making muffins. If you are a novice baker or like to bake muffins, these tips given are very informative. Please read on :

1. How to make muffins by Food 4 Tots
2. Dome Secrets by The Prepared Pantry
3. Making Muffins by All Recipes.com
4. Cupcake vs Muffin by Pei Chyi
   

Raisins & Chocolate Chips Muffins

After I tried to bake muffin for the first time last week, I found that making muffins is a lot easier than baking cakes. Not only less ingredients to prepare, the methods are much simpler and small serving (usually 6 to 12 muffins) which is just nice for my family size. I think I should focus on baking muffins, instead of trying out fancy cakes since I am still a beginner in baking.

For this week baking experiment, I selected the Raisins & Chocolate Chips Muffins, recipe from Happy Home Baking.

My results:

Look ok!

Taste ok too!

Ingredients:
(makes 8 muffins)
250g plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup raisins
1 egg, beaten
60g unsalted butter, melted
175ml milk
125g caster sugar

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 220°C (I followed one of tips stated in Food 4 Tots, i.e. start off the oven hot at 220°C then turn it down to the right temperature (200°C). This is to achieve the nice looking crunchy top. And it works!)
   
2. Melt butter in a saucepan, over low heat, set aside to cool.
3. Sieve together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a mixing bowl.
4. Add chocolate chips, raisins and mix with a spatula. Make a well in the centre.
5. Place egg, melted butter, milk and sugar in another bowl. Mix until thoroughly combined. (To cut down on washing up, I mixed these ingredients into the saucepan which I used to melt the butter).
6. Pour the liquid mixture into the flour. With the spatula, gently fold all the ingredients to form a wet batter. Just mix until the flour are incorporate into the batter. DO NOT Over mix.
7. Spoon batter into paper muffin cups. Bake for 20mins until muffins turn golden brown or a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.
8. Let cool on a wire rack.

Chocolate Walnut Muffins

I found some muffins recipes from other blogs and think that muffins should be simple to make and the small serving is just nice for my family size. After shortlisted few recipes, I chose the "Chocolate Walnut Muffins" from Grace Kitchen Corner as my first ever homemade muffins. Furthermore, I have a pack of walnuts came all the way from Ireland :D It was given by my sister-in-law who came back to KK for holidays recently.

During preparation, I was confident that my first ever muffins would be VERY OK and the kids would love them. Simple job. After I put in the baking powder, I noticed that the mixture became very thick. Then I realised that actually I put in the WRONG amount of baking powder. The recipe asks for 1 TEASPOON of baking powder and I put in 1 TABLESPOON instead. OMG!!! Straight away my confidence level dropped to zero. I was wondering whether I should continue on to send the mixture to oven or thrown to the rubbish bin. Then I decided to safe my stupid mistake by putting in more milk. I did not even measure how much milk that I put it. I just poured and stopped when the mixtures became not so thick.

What is the used of baking powder? According to Wikipedia, "Baking powder is a dry chemical leavening agent used to increase the volume and lighten the texture of baked goods such as muffins, cakes, scones and North American biscuits." Oh no! Increase the volume, huh!?

My results?

Hey, not so bad looking, huh? Not only they look OK, they taste good also. I guess the Irish walnuts do make wonders. My boys finished 4 muffins and I gave away 2 for my part-time maid. What an experience and a lesson well learnt too. In future I MUST READ THE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY.

Recipes from Grace Kitchen Corner:
(to make 6 muffins)
Unsalted butter 50g
Caster Sugar 70g
Egg 1
Plain flour 85g (sieved plain flour, cocoa powder & baking powder)
Cocoa Powder 15g
Baking Powder 1 tsp
Pinch of Salt
Milk 60g
Walnut 60g (toasted and chopped)

Method:

1. Beat the butter with sugar until light & pale in color.
2. Add in egg then pinch of salt, beat until well combine.
3. Add half of the milk and half of the flour. Using a hand whisk mix until well combine.
4. Add in remaining milk and flour and mix well.
5. Combine walnut with the mixture. Fill the muffins cups. Bake at 170c preheated oven for 30 minutes.