Mum messaged our ‘Ladies of the Fam’ WhatsApp group the other day asking if “.. anyone has my sticky date recipe handy? I really must bring it to Culburra!”
“No, I don’t. Sorry Mum”, Case replied.
“Is it on the blog?” says Ali, seconds later… shortly before copying and pasting a link to the very recipe.
My always quick-witted cousin Jess fires back with “Ali Thomas, you beautiful genius!”
And therein lies the reason I started the Lo’s Kitchen food blog. As a way of collating all of our much loved and treasured family recipes to have them in one easily accessible spot.
So in continuing with the tradition of sharing these family friendly recipes, I give to you, Nee’s giant chocolate cake. Deriving from The Australian Women’s Weekly it is almost identical to one my Nanny used to make.
If you’re looking for something ridiculously chocolatey and sweet, than this is not the recipe for you. This one uses cocoa powder to give you the chocolate flavour as opposed to many thick mud cake recipes that use melted chocolate. This one is perfect for a kids birthday party, to put in kids lunchboxes or to make when you have friends coming to stay.
Made using ingredients that can be found in the pantry and fridge (there’s nothing fancy here), it makes a huge cake. Enough for everyone to have seconds, and thirds.
Primmie’s had a ball making it.
large family chocolate cake
1 1/2 cups of milk
1 1/2 tablespoons of white vinegar
250 grams butter (softened in the microwave)
2 x teaspoons of vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups of sugar
2 1/4 cups of plain flour
2 x teaspoons of bi-carb soda
3/4 cup of cocoa
4 x eggs
chocolate buttercream
125 grams of butter, softened
2 x cups of icing sugar mixture
1 x tablespoon of cocoa
A small splash of milk, adding more as you need it
To make the buttercream: simply add the butter, icing sugar and cocoa to a large bowl of a stand mixer and mix together, starting on a low speed as you don’t want to decorate your kitchen in icing sugar. Add a splash of milk and continue to mix well. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula to ensure even stirring, adding more milk if you need to until you have a nice buttercream consistency.
- Preheat the oven to low, around 150℃ fan forced should do it.
- Grease and line a large, deep square cake tin (22cm) as this is a big cake.
- Add the milk and vinegar together into a jug and set aside (this will naturally start to curdle which is essentially making buttermilk).
- Simply add all other ingredients in to a large bowl of a stand mixer.
- Pour the milk/vinegar in as well.
- Mix together well, starting on a slow speed and increasing as you go. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula in the middle of this process to ensure that you get everything mixed nicely.
- Pour in to the prepared cake tin and bake for approximately 50 – 60 minutes or until a cake skewer comes out nice and clean.
- Transfer to a cake rack to cool.
- Ice with chocolate buttercream and decorate however you like.
lo's kitchen 