Lara's Signature Chocolate-Vanilla Cake

Name: Lara's Signature Chocolate-Vanilla Cake
Prep time: 1 h
Cook time: 1 h 10 min
Total time: 2 h 10 min
Yield: 1 9-inch cake, 8 serving(s)
Ingredients: 185 g butter, room temperature and chopped into small pieces; 2 teaspoons vanilla essence; 1 1/2 cups sugar, sifted; 3 eggs; 2 cups self raising flour, sifted; 2/3 cup cocoa, sifted; 1 cup water; 2 cups icing sugar, sifted; 2 teaspoons plain yogurt (can be low fat or sweetened); 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract; 3 teaspoons boiling water; 350 g rich chocolate mousse mix

Submitted by NOOBchef

"This is the cake I make for birthdays . Its simple , delicious and ... well , my signature :) The cake is pretty forgiving, quite dense and cracks on top - I got the recipe from a cooking course, the icing is also one of my recipes and the mousse can come from a mix."

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Ready In:: 2hrs 10mins
Ingredients:: 12
Yields:: 1 9-inch cake
Serves:: 8

ingredients

For cake
185 g butter, room temperature and chopped into small pieces
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
1 ¹⁄₂ cups sugar, sifted
3 eggs
2 cups self raising flour, sifted
²⁄₃ cup cocoa, sifted
1 cup water
For icing
2 cups icing sugar, sifted
2 teaspoons plain yogurt (can be low fat or sweetened)
¹⁄₂ teaspoon vanilla extract
3 teaspoons boiling water
For mousse
350 g rich chocolate mousse mix

directions

[IN THE EVENING BEFORE]
Grease a 9-inch cake pan and preheat oven to 160/375 degrees Celcius / Farenheit.
On a low speed, beat butter, essence, sugar, eggs, flour, cocoa and water in a large bowl until they are well mixed.
Then beat at a higher speed until the colour of the mixture changes and everything is very well mixed.
Spread into pan.
Bake for one hour or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Prepare mousse.
Leave them both to cool/chill during the night.
[IN THE MORNING].
Cut cake in half (carefully !).
Spread mousse evenly across the bottom half and position top half on top - carefully push it down a bit to 'set' it.
Make icing - stir yoghurt and vanilla into icing sugar until thick.
Quickly add and mix in the hot water.
Immediately spread on cake.
I suggest decorating it with chocolate letters, chopped almonds or dusted cocoa.
Also try subbing the chocolate mousse with straciatella mousse.

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RECIPE SUBMITTED BY

NOOBchef

http://www.recipezaar.com/members/home/258867/IMG_0034.JPG Me at Christmas , eyeing the mince pies , muaharhar. I'm sixteen years old and love to cook. Seriosuly , I always bug my mum when she's coming home - " Can I boil an egg ? Do you want me to put on the pasta ? " etc - and I have little tradition where I cook a complete dinner once a fortnight. Thats' generally what I review recipes for as I don't get a chance to cook the rest of the time :( Since I live in Hong Kong, I don't have access to a lot of the stuff most Recipezaar-ers in the US do , so I spend a lot of time filtering out refrigerated buttermilk biscuits , frozen pie shells, pastry flour and all those instant mixes >< Its' not just that I live in Hong Kong though , my pantry (physically impossible in a two-bedroom flat, but there in mind and spirit) is small. What I always have in the kitchen : plain flour, self-raising flour, sugar, cocoa, pasta, canned beans, canned tomatoes, fresh tomatoes, garlic, onion, some kind of cheese, low-fat yogurt, low-fat milk, water, frozen berries, muesli. I guess a love of food is born in as I'm half-Italian. I go to Sicily every summer and its so different from here - there is this ...respect for food. I LOVE IT The other half of me has an ex-baking grandma ( she stopped after she had no-one to fatten up ) and I think I got a bit of that too , I absolutely ADORE making cakes, cookies,muffins but I hate having them around the house . I mulled over the idea of selling my baked stuff but in the end decided I'd probably get arrested for hawking and no-one would know what I was doing anyway. My rating system - ***** Perfect. this is for whatever the recipe claims to be, i.e. if a recipe a simple,quick, economic stew I won't give it *** for not being finicky or delicate. These are often foolproof, too :) **** Almost perfect, but there was something missing. *** All right . Not a bad recipe, but I didn't like it. ** Not enjoyable, but with some spark or facet with merit. * Godawful. SORRY ! <img src="http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b399/susied214/permanent%20collection/Adopted1smp.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"> <img src="http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b399/susied214/CV.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a> <img src="http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b399/susied214/permanent%20collection/adoptedspring08.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket">

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