The perfect chocolate cake

There is no doubt that it is each and every baker's fantasy to master the art of baking and create the perfect chocolate cake that is soft and moist and is decorated with ribbons of chocolate icing. Bakers are constantly on the hunt for new recipes that can help them achieve their goal and skim through cook books and online recipe websites in order to full fill their dream of creating the perfect chocolate cake. There is no doubt that these websites provide good recipes that can indeed make rich moist chocolate cakes however, most websites forget to add in tips that can make your cake a hit with your friends and family.

I started baking in 2001 and my first cake meant the world to me. I followed the instructions provided in a cook book and expected the world's perfect cake to pop out of the oven waiting for me to sink my teeth into it. The cake did look perfect and looked exactly as I hoped it would but I could not bear to swallow even a piece of the cake as it tasted like acid!  I pondered for an hour what went wrong and I finally decided to dissect the cake and learn from my mistakes. To my horror I realised that I had not mixed the baking soda and there were lumps of baking soda in various parts of the cake. Another mistake I had made was to add too much baking power to the cake assuming that the cake will rise better.

After picking up the pieces of my poor cake I decided that I was ready to make another chocolate cake that would not only look good and taste good and the second cake I made was exactly as I planned. I will not say it was exceptionally good but at that particular time it did taste great as I honestly did not know what to expect.

I have been baking a cake every week since that day and I would like to mention a few things that I have learned in these years.

1) The cakes made from self raising flour taste great and if you want a puffy cake then add a pinch of baking powder and soda into the cake mixture.

2) As far as possible try and use an electric hand mixer to beat the eggs. Do not beat the mixture after adding flour, instead use a wooden or plastic spatula and stir the batter in an upward and downward direction.

3) Sifting the flour along with the baking powder, baking soda and cocoa powder blends the ingredients well and saves time and effort while mixing.

4) Adding 3 teaspoons of milk to the cake makes the cake richer, softer and moist. Butter is the best form of fat for a cake and although margerine is commonly used to make cakes, using butter makes better cakes.

5) Preheating the oven at 180 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes helps make the cake faster. If the temperature is too high then the sugar in the cake will caramelise creating a hard cake. The temperature of the oven should not be too low either as this will cause the cake to be half cooked.

Always remember that the first cake may not be exceptionally good but baking frequently can teach you a lot of valuable things that will help you create a cake that will be the talk of your neighborhood.