If you love baking chances are you grew up making one particular chocolate cake recipe over and over. It may be a family recipe, the origins of which are long forgotten. It may have been taught to you by your mum. But it’s the one you trust and which never fails you.

This recipe is one I started making as a teenager from an old recipe book of my mother. It is called a chiffon cake and is light as a feather because the beaten egg whites are folded in separately. I seldom make a different one as this one adapts easily to a sandwich cake or traybake. In honour of International Chocolate Cake day which is today, 27 January I’m sharing my favourite chocolate cake recipe with you.

If you make it please do tag me on your posts and leave a comment to let me know what you think.

Featherlight Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:

4 Eggs Separated
1 1/2 cup Sugar
1 1/2 cup Flour
3/4 cup Oil
3/4 cup Warm water
1 tsp Vanilla essence
5 Dessert spoons Cocoa Powder
4 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
pinch of Salt

Method:

Beat egg whites halfway stiff. Add salt and 2 tsp baking powder. Continue beating till stiff.
Sift together flour, baking powder and cocoa.
Beat egg yolks and sugar till creamy. Add vanilla and beat. Add the oil and water and beat together.
Add the dry ingredients and beat till fully combined.
Fold in the egg whites gently.
Pour into 2 well greased and floured sandwich pans (preferably loose bottomed) and bake at 180˚C for 15 to 20 minutes.
Allow to cool before removing.

Topping:

Melt a slab of Cadbury milk chocolate gently in the microwave by heating on medium for 30 seconds at a time and stirring each time. Add a tin of Nestle Cream and stir together. Pour generously over your cake and let it dribble down the sides.