The Best Chocolate Cake for a Tea Party

For Anita's Tea Party celebration, the only fitting thing I could think of was this divine Chocolate Cake which I have blogged about before. This time though, I made it so my daughter's teachers could have a tea party celebration for Teacher's Day!

I have seen previous Teacher's Days in Delhi and the gifts and flowers it seems to entail in this showy city.....I don't subscribe to the idea at all. My mother has been a teacher all her working life and I know for sure that the one thing they do like is genuine appreciation for all the hard work they put in - the one upmanship among parents is, to say the least, annoying and sometimes embarassing.

My daughter is still very young though and it is a little difficult to explain to her why we don't necessarily have to do what everyone else is doing. So, I thought of involving her in baking a homemade chocolate cake instead, as a token of her love and appreciation - something which the other teachers could partake in as well, instead of making it a personal gift. She was happy to do all the mixing and measuring (and licking of bowl!) and took genuine pride at the end of it all in the soft, pillowy cake which emerged out of the oven. Lets raise a toast to freeing ourselves from the pack and doing what's right instead.

This time around, I added some whole wheat flour and cut back on the butter (as promised the last time) and it didn't make a difference. It is still a gorgeous chocolate cake - one you should try the next time you want someone to know, they're special.

 Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:
Refined flour (maida) - 1 cup
Whole wheat flour - 1/4 cup
Baking soda - 1/2 tsp
Baking powder - 1/2 tsp
1/2 cup cocoa powder, (I used Cadbury's)
1/2 tsp coffee powder (instant)
1 cup boiling water
Vanilla essence - 2 tsp
Butter at room temperature - 1 cup
Castor sugar - 1 cup
Eggs - 2

Method:
1. Take a large bowl and beat the butter in it with an electric mixed on medium for about half a minute.
2. Add the sugar gradually and cream together till shiny and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time and beat the first well before adding the second one.
3. Meanwhile, heat the water till it is boiling and then pour over the cocoa powder in a bowl. Mix well till dissolved. Cool and then mix in the vanilla essence.
4. Sieve the flour, baking soda and baking powder together. Add the flour mix a little at a time to the butter sugar egg mixture, alternating with the cocoa mixture, beating continuously with the mixer on medium continuously. When it is combined well, beat on low for another half a minute.
5. Pour the cake batter into 2 pans (I used a 8" round pan and a smaller rectangular pan) which have been lined with parchment paper on the bottom and greased and floured on the sides.
If not using parchment paper on the bottom (I didn't have any this time), grease and flour the bottom well, instead. This cake is very soft and if not lined or greased, may break when you try to turn it out.
6. Pre heat the oven to 190C and bake for about 25 minutes - a toothpick inserted should come out moist but not uncooked. Cool completely before attempting to take it out - this is very important.
7. Warm slightly before serving.