Black Magic Cake

Black Magic Cake

This chocolate cake is dark, super moist and very delicious! There’s no butter or actual chocolate required, and the special ingredient is coffee! Don’t worry if you’re not a coffee lover, you really can’t taste it as such. It does however help the chocolate flavour develop and adds to the cake’s moist consistency. I don’t know about you but I never have buttermilk in the fridge – I always just make my own. 1 cup of milk + 1 tbsp white vinegar = easy!

Ingredients

230g plain flour

70g unsweetened cocoa powder

360g caster sugar

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp salt

2 large eggs

1 cup buttermilk*

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 tbsp instant coffee dissolved in 1 cup of hot water

* Don’t have buttermilk? It’s easy to make your own – just stir 1 tbsp white vinegar into 1 cup milk. That’s it!

* Always use eggs and milk at room temperature when baking. I keep most of my eggs in the fridge, except for 4-6 in an egg holder on the bench top. That way I always have some ready when I want them 🙂

 Keep reading below for the directions and buttercream recipe.

Directions

1) Preheat oven to 180°C fan. Grease and line 2 x 20cm cake tins.

2) Sift the flour and cocoa powder into a large bowl. Add the sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Mix together and make a well in the centre.

3) Pour in the eggs, buttermilk, oil, vanilla essence and coffee mixture.

4) Mix with a hand mixer on low for 1-2 mins until well combined.

5) Pour evenly into the prepared tins, and bake for 35-38 mins. (The cakes will spring back when lightly touched in the centre, or an inserted skewer will come out clean).

6) Cool in tins for 10 tins, then turn out onto cooling racks. When cold, ice and fill with buttercream.

Buttercream ingredients:

150g butter, softened (not melted)
2 cups of icing sugar
2-3 tbsp milk
(If adding, 1/2-1 tsp vanilla essence)

Buttercream directions:

1) Beat the butter until pale and fluffy. The longer you beat it – the paler it will go!

2) Slowly mix in the icing sugar.

3) Add enough milk to reach the right consistency.

Buttercream Tips:

Obviously butter is yellow by nature, so obtaining a picture-perfect crisp white buttercream isn’t that easy. The BEST quick tip to whiter buttercream is to beat your butter a LOT!! The longer the butter is mixed for – the paler it goes! This isn’t something you’ll want to tackle by hand – so either use an electric hand mixer or a stand mixer. The added bonus is, the longer you whip for, the lighter and fluffier your buttercream will be too.
If you want to add vanilla essence, you can apparently buy a clear vanilla essence instead of the dark. It’s not something I’ve used though. If I want my buttercream to be as pale as possible, I just skip the vanilla altogether. You can add a couple of drops of lemon juice for flavour if you like.
Specialist stores do also sell white food colouring, but again it’s not something I’ve tried.

One Handed Baker

Black Magic Cake

Directions

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