Chocolate cake with whipped cream cheese icing // Recipe

I really like cake stands. Like, really. I don’t have that many, but I also don’t have much storage space in the kitchen. Urgh! Anyway, Michael said I could get ONE more, so it had to be a good one! I found this cute little one at Mr Price for a steal and just had to get it (along with smaller 18cm  cake tins to fit it..) Finally finding the time to bake a cake, I decided on a chocolate cake with a whipped cream and cream cheese icing. Delicious!

I’ve made a cream cheese icing before, but I wanted to try a lighter one with whipped cream this time. It came out so well with just a hint of sweetness, not like so many icings where I end up scraping most of the icing off.

Cake recipe:

1 cup oil
2 cups sugar
1 cup warm water
6 eggs, seperated
2 cups flour
2 tblsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 tblsp cocoa

Preheat oven to 180C and grease and line baking tins.
Beat together oil, sugar, water and egg yolks until mixture thickens. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa and then sift again into the oil mixture. Fold in.
Beat the egg whites to soft peak and then fold them into the rest of the ingredients, first folding in one third, then the rest of the egg white.
Pour mixture into cake tins and bake for 40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

Notes:

• It will make enough for two thick layers in 25cm tins or 4 layers in 18cm tins. Since I was using 18cm tins and only had 2 tins, I cooked two layers at a time.
• This cake really is better the next day, so bake the cake and then store in an airtight container. Ice on the day of serving.

Cream cheese and whipped cream frosting recipe:

1 carton (250ml) fresh cream, whipped to peaks
1 carton (230g) plain cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar (use 3/4 – 1 cup, if you want a sweeter icing)
1 tsp vanilla essence
Pinch salt

Beat together cream cheese, sugar, vanilla essence, salt. Add whipped cream and beat together to mix fully. Done! So easy 🙂

(Optional) Add a few walnuts or shaved white chocolate for the topping.

This doubled as my dad’s birthday cake and as always it was lovely to share a meal with my family and celebrate.

What’s your favourite way to celebrate meals?