I post when I have something to say. When I don’t, I won’t post. I wonder if that makes any sense to you?. I am also not one to post for the sake of celebration. I don’t get excited about New Year’s events, wedding anniversaries or any prophet’s birthdays. That can’t be a nice thing if I am your mom though. I dread my daughter’s birthday ever year. Just like I dreaded my own wedding, one year. Not sure if it is shyness, laziness or just can’t push myself into that sort of thing.
I guess what brings all this to the foreground is Valentine is coming up this week, and I don’t really celebrate that either. A one year mark has arrived and passed to this blog’s existence, birthday if you like and I have not put a candle up like many dotting bloggers do. Gladly there is no one to point out “how could you not” to me. Here I am free to just BE. On the other hand, I remember coming across a beautiful post on Valentine written last year by my friend Oz in her Kitchen Butterfly, Even though it was written for that occasion, it celebrated the self and its livelihood more than anything else. Her post made me think and feel a lot of things. It made me realise why I blog, and how much I learn when I share life stories, struggles and loves. I also fell in love with Oz’s courage and energy to share her personal experiences with food. Her writing actually resonated deeply with my own struggles and relationship with food. I will write about that at a later stage on this blog. For now and on the subject of love, food and life.. I woke up last friday and all I wanted was to bake this new chocolate cake recipe. “An ode to a chocolate cake” comes to mind. I had this recipe on my shelf for years but never took real notice to it. I am not going to marvel about its greatness. Just to say make it if you ever feel like a light sponge chocolate cake with a deep red color sponge. It is adapted from William Sonoma’s ‘Cake’.
Method.
Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease and line two 9 inch round cake pans with parchment (baking) paper.
On a baking sheet, or foil sheet, sieve the flour, salt, bicarbonate of soda, set aside. Mix the Cocoa in the water. Leave aside for a few minutes then add the butter milk and Vanilla to the cocoa mixture. Beat the butter first in a cake mixer until soft, then add the sugar and beat untill pale and well mixed. Add the eggs one at a time and mixing very well after each addition. Add the dry mixture in 3 additions alternating with the cocoa wet mixture. Start and end with the flour mixture. Don’t over mix, just enough to scrape down any unmixed liquids from the bottom of the bowl. Pour the batter equally in the 2 cake tins and bake until firm to the touch for 30 minutes. I use level 2 and 4 in my oven and alternate the two cake tins hlaf way through the baking time so they both cook evenly.
Take out the cake tins, allow to cool down, flip them out securely and let them cool further on wire racks. Add 1/3 the icing in the middle and smother the rest on the top and sides of the cakes. Bon Appetite
Ingredients
- 3 large eggs at room temperature
- 170 g or 3/4 cup unsaulted butter at room temp
- 1/2 cup butter milk room temperature (I used low fat strained greek yogurt mixed with 2 tablespoons low fat milk.
- 2 teaspoon vanilla essence
- 1/2 cup hot water
- 1/2 dutch processed Cocoa
- 1 teaspoon Bi carbonate Soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 firmly packed light brown sugar
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 225g or 1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
For the Icing I simply used this old and easy recipe
While venturing into the unknown, I needed to use my hands and eyes to do what is familiar and comforting. Preparing food, taking a picture and writing about it. In Arabic a ‘Aroos’ means a bride and Even though I am not entirely sure why it is called that, I can only guess it is because of the satin like bread that wraps the white strained yogurt. This is a wrap that most children would have enjoyed at some point in their childhood in countries like Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
I sat this morning in a cafe adamant to finish paper work and research that needed to be done. I found myself instead day dreaming about baking just that autumnal kind of cake. One that had cinnamon, apples and everything that is warming and wonderful. I have to say though that my day dream did start with a lemony poppy seed muffin and gradually metamorphosed into a caramel apple muffin. Unfortunately that’s part of a Geminian personality, always changeable. Fortunately it works well sometimes. I went straight to the Contessa herself Ina Garten.
Her sour cream apple muffins looked wonderful. I wanted all the goodness of her recipe minus the butter content. So I added 1/4 cup grape seed oil instead and reckoned that the sour cream will add the moistness and fat content it needed. It worked! I also grated the apples as I did not want to bite into a cooked fruit. Fussy eater anyone? A tiny amount of butter goes a long way, so added that on top mixed with cinnamon, walnuts, flour and sugar to get some glaze and sweetness.
