The famous chocolate cake

The second chocolate cake in a week is in the oven. The one baked last Saturday when the power was on wasn’t going to hold up well for a week in the fridge when the after party was postponed. And I didn’t want an entire cake sitting in the fridge saying “eat me”, so I took that one with me on Monday morning to share with the people who were at the hall doing clean up. (Disappeared so quickly I barely managed to save one piece for myself.) So another cake in the oven for tonight’s postponed after party.

This is a famous cake. My friend Jane knows it well, as it was in the Moosewood cookbook she sold to me many years ago when she had her bookshop in Vancouver. Called “Six-Minute Chocolate Cake”, it really is the easiest cake recipe in the world.

Eleven years ago, after the first panto in which I’d been involved, I made this cake for the after party. I also baked it for the second after party and possibly the third. Then I decided to do something different, something savoury, for the fourth (or possibly third) after party. I turned up with tapenade, sun dried tomato humus and some bread. Pretty much everyone looked at me and asked, “Where’s the chocolate cake?” Well, that solved that. I’ve never had to give any thought to what I might make. Since then it’s always been chocolate cake.   

As I have things to do, in addition to finishing the cake, today, rather than trying to think of anything else that’s interesting to say, I might as well share the recipe. (The Moosewood folks freely admit they found it in a copy of House and Garden, so it’s not like I’m giving anything away.)

Vinegar? Yes, it’s a chemistry experiment. And the milk in the glaze is really not needed, so it’s also vegan.

Enjoy!