Chocolate Cake

I've had this chocolate cake recipe for 15 years now and it ALWAYS works. Its so easy my 3 year old does most of the work for me!

Start off with the chocolate base:


1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 cup sugar

Melt the butter in a saucepan and add  the cocoa powder. Cook for 1 minute on low heat stirring constantly. Don't overcook or the cake will taste of burnt cocoa. Add the sugar and mix till incorporated. The mixture will darken when you add the sugar. Remove from heat.

2 Eggs
3/4 cup Cake &Pastry Flour (or All-purpose Flour) with a tiny pinch of salt (don't add the salt if you're using salted butter)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup milk

In a separate bowl mix together the eggs. The next step is to mix in the cocoa mixture. Keep in mind that the cocoa mixture will be warm and the eggs will be cold. So you will need to bring up the temperature of the eggs gradually. This process is called Tempering: Mix in a bit of the hot mixture in the eggs and mix well. Gradually add more of the hot liquid and mix well. Slowly add the entire cocoa mix in the eggs mixture and mix well.

Mix the baking powder and salt in the flour and fold the dry mix in the cocoa batter. (Feel free to taste the mixture as you mix it.) Fold in the milk. Pour in a lined baking pan and bake in a preheated oven at 350 F for 20 mins.

A quick way to dress it: Smooth over some Nutella on the cooled cake and viola! 

More fun ways to make this cake:

Bake it in a Wilton Character Pan - I did Elmo for my son's 2nd Birthday last year: 

A good friend of mine (Tamania) used the same recipe to make Cupcakes too: 

Mini Pizzas!

The best comfort foods in the world: pastas and mini puffy cheesy pizzas!

For the crust:

Prepare the pizza crust by mixing together 3 cups of All-purpose Flour with 1/4 teaspoon salt. Prepare the yeast mixture by adding a sachet of fast-rising yeast with 1 cup warm water and 3 tsp sugar. Mix the yeast mixture with the flour mixture and add 1/4 cup Olive oil. Knead well and leave covered in a greased bowl for at least 3 hours. 

For the topping:

Mix together your favorite blend of Pizza veges. I use Spinach, Red Peppers, Olives, Corn, Mushrooms and just a bit of Onions. For the meat you can use whatever you like from shrimp to left-over roast chicken. I used Chicken Sausages in this one. You can also just exclude the meat if you want to.

Beat down the dough and transfer to a greased parchment paper. Since the dough is a bit on the sticky side, I spray my hands with some canola oil and that helps a lot. Divide the dough into 6 balls. Pat them down to as big or small you want your pizza to be. Mine are around 6-7 inches in diameter.

Top each base with 1 tbsp ketchup and 1/2 tbsp sour cream and spread across with a spoon.

Spoon the toppings over the base and top with lots of shredded Mozarella Cheese.

Bake in preheated oven at 400 F for 12 minutes.

 And if you're not satisfied, you can always turn to the expert Pizza Maker for help.

Hot Dogs with Peppers!

This is a fun and easy way to glorify the simple hotdog! Its barely even a recipe but its worth posting and you'll know it when you have one of these yourself!

The only twist to this hotdog recipe is the way you cook it. 

Slice some Red Peppers, Onions and Green chillies. If you don't want it too spicy then remove the seeds from the chilli. Fry these in some oil and as the onions go limp add the hotdogs.

Cook till the sausages have cooked through and stuff them in Sesame dressed Hotdog Buns. For the toppings use Mustard, Mayo, Ketchup and Green Relish. Enjoy!

Masala Chicken

I've got so bored of the standard Chicken Salan that I had to come up with something new to make with bone-in chicken. So one day when all I had left in my freezer stock were Curry-cut chicken pieces I decided to marinate that like Chicken Tikka and cook it like salan - Most Yummy it turned out! Of course it had no name (not that I know of) so I call it Masala Chicken.

Marinate the (1/2 kg) chicken in Yogurt (1/4 c) with ground roasted cumin and coriander seeds (1 heaped tbsp each). Mix in the spices according to taste (Turmeric, Salt, Pepper, Cayenne or Red Pepper, Garam Masala). I just use approx 1/2 tsp of each. Add 3 cloves of crushed garlic and 1 tablespoon of crushed ginger. (Its always easy to use the cheese grater for garlic and ginger when you have such small quantities). Add juice of half a lemon (the big ones) - 2 tbsp approx and mix well so all the pieces are well coated.

Leave the marinade for at least an hour.

Saute some onions (1 small) till browned and add the chicken along with all the sauce. 

Cook on med-high for a few minutes and toss the chicken regularly. Cover with lid and reduce the heat to med-low. Cook with lid on for another 5 mins. Meanwhile chop 1/4 cup of green onions and one medium tomato. Add to the mixture and cook till meat is tender. For this dish I try and cook the chicken without the lid so it stays on the dry side. If you want it to have some more gravy you can leave the lid on longer.

Enjoy with Roti or Rice.