Cooking

I LOVE cooking. I probably make homemade meals at least 4 times a week. I love trying new recipes, and found this amazing website that has TONS. It called foodgawker.com. I will usually try out the recipie, then take away or add other things to make it the way I like it. One thing I made recently was this chocolate cake:

Chocolate Buttermilk Cake with Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

The picture from the website looked like this:

So I am not that professional yet, but I think it probably tasted just as good! Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:
1 cup (250 ml) water
125 g unsalted butter, chopped
1/3 cup (35 g) cocoa, sifted
2 cups (300 g) plain (all-purpose) flour, sifted
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of (baking) soda, sifted
2 cups (440 g) caster (superfine) sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup (125 ml) buttermilk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 160° C (325° F). Lightly grease 2, 18 cm round cake tins and line with parchment paper.
Place the water, butter and cocoa in a small saucepan over medium heat and stir until the butter has melted; set aside.
Using a fine-mesh sieve, sift the flour and bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl. Add sugar and whisk to combine well.
Add the cocoa mixture and whisk to combine. Add the eggs, buttermilk and vanilla and whisk to combine.
Divide batter evenly between the 2 cake tins. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until a cake tester inserted in centre of cake comes out clean.
Allow to cool in the tins on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Turn out onto wire racks to cool completely.

Cream Cheese Frosting:

100 g unsalted butter, softened
500 g cream cheese
2 cups (320 g) icing (confectioner’s) sugar, sifted
1/2 cup (50 g) cocoa, sifted

Place butter and cream cheese in the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on medium-high speed for 6 to 8 minutes or until pale and creamy.
Meanwhile, using a fine-mesh sieve, sift icing sugar and cocoa into a medium bowl. Repeat an additional 2 times.
Reduce stand mixer to low speed and gradually add the icing sugar, cocoa mixture.
Increase speed to medium-high and continue to beat for a further 6 to 8 minutes or until light and fluffy.

The directions were a little weird (I think the lady was from England) so I had to look up the conversions from grams into tablespoons. Also, the frosting was a little to cream-cheesy. Next time I would probably do less cream cheese. It was delicous though! Definately would make this again.