The chocolate cake recipe can be modified if you want just a plain sponge cake or a lemon flavoured cake without eggs. Instructions for these changes are at the end of the recipe. The icings for these cakes can be found under the different types of icing.

Ingredients

This is for the eggless chocolate cake.
100g of margarine
25g of butter
3 teaspoons of vinegar
2 cups of water
10ml of vanilla essence
2 cups of sugar
3 cups of flour
6 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
80ml of cocoa powder

Method

  1. Heat butter and margarine in the microwave until melted.
  2. Stir in the vinegar, water and vanilla essence.
  3. Combine and whisk together the dry ingredients with the butter mixture.
  4. The mixture should resemble a smooth and creamy texture.
  5. Pour the mixture into a greased baking tray lined with a grease proof paper.
  6. Bake the cake on 180 degrees for 50 to 60 minutes.

Tip : Insert a knife or a metal skewer into the cake to check if the cake has baked completely, if the skewer or knife is clean after removal then the cake is baked.

Icing

A chocolate icing should be used once the cake is cooled. You can find these instructions under the butter icing recipe and take note of the method for a chocolate variant. It simply involves mixing 25g of margarine, 25g of butter, 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence, 1 cup (250g) of icing sugar and 1 heaped tablespoon of cocoa powder until you get a smooth creamy texture. After icing you can grate some chocolate or break a flake over the top if you wish.

Optional

  • For a plain basic sponge cake, omit the cocoa powder and add 4 tablespoons of flour.
  • For a basic lemon cake, the cocoa powder should be omitted and replaced with 1 teaspoon of lemon rind and 1 tablespoon of fresh lemon juice.

The icing for the sponge cake and lemon cake can also be found in the article on different types of icing.