Scratching An Itch, and Feeding A Crave ...And No, We Are Not Pregnant. At Least Not With Child.

I finally caved into my craving for chocolate cake.  After reading countless recipes, I decided to mix and match, resulting in a result I am fairly pleased with.  

Recipe

One heaped cup superfine flour (I used MFM) (approx 150gm)
3/4 tspn baking powder (bp)
3/4 tspn baking soda (bs)
3/4 cup caster sugar
(NOTE ABOUT SUGAR.  Most Western recipe books and even Su Chan's uses around 2 cups sugar for their cakes, which I find too sweet, but 3/4 cup might result in a slightly bitter cake for you sweet toothed people, which I like).

75 gms van houten cocoa powder (blardy expensive)
280 gms salted butter (probably can get away with a block of 250gm)
3 eggs (from a chicken, not a duck, or a quail)
300 ml evaporated milk...(which inconveniently leaves a little bit in the can, so maybe just chuck in the whole can)
1 tspn vanilla extract (none of that essence stuff)

Sift dry ingredients (that's flour, bp, bs and cocoa, for the uninitiated)
Cream the butter and sugar until pale
Add eggs one by one (its not noah's ark)
Add half the milk, and half the sifted dry ingredients, mix.
Repeat, but do not over mix, or overwork the flour.  No one likes to be overworked, and flours are just like you and me.
Pour into a greased or lined 8" square tin, and bake at preheated 160C oven for 35-40 minutes.  To test to see if it is baked through, insert a fork, unless you want an unblemished surface (which is unlikely, as it should be cracked slightly anyway), in which case, insert a satay stick (called skeweres...and who keeps THOSE around unless you're a satay man).


Cool before icing with...

 GANACHE
200 grams lindt chocolate or any other expensive dark chocolate.  Do NOT use cheap cooking chocolate at this stage, unless your ingredients above were all cheap to begin with.
1/4 cup whipping cream
 Melt in a pot or microwave until ...melted.  Leave to cool or chuck in fridge to set.
Spread over the cooled chocolate cake.

IF you want even MORE decadence, double the ganache, split cake into half, (as in horizontally), sandwich the two layers with another layer of ganache.

Don't know how you're going to serve it, I'm serving mine with home made vanilla ice cream.