Chocolate cake!!! - and my first layered one too... #allsmiles

Allo, allo, allo!

Been a while and hope we're good? I am! The very fact that I can type this, makes all things bright for me... lol...

So recently, I wanted to try out this filled cupcake recipe, and then I got distracted by the recipe below found on my baking brick of Stalk margarine...

So in my post on Surf cakes, under the Butter vs Margarine section, I explained why I loved Stork margarine as a butter alternative. I hope you find it useful.

So back to my story, in the end, I postponed my pursuit of filled cupcakes till later and went on a search for chocolate powder 😃!!

Three shops and a zillion steps later, I was the proud owner of these beauties and was ready to bake my first layered cake!!! Whoop whoop!!!

I am honestly getting used to these photo stories, so as with some posts, I'll chip in where I deviated. I hope you have fun reading, and baking it if you do try... I did!!! Lol...

Ready? Let's go!!

The cake itself 

Just an FYI, I had never baked a cake from creaming the eggs and sugar first. I always started with sugar and fat, eggs came after that... so this method is my first, and actually a pretty good first, surprisingly... lol... 

So this is one thing I love about baking, exact measurements often make me think of mathematical story problems from Primary school. We'll be using subtractions a lot in this recipe, due to the tools I had. Here, we need to find the weight of the empty bowl before we weigh out our sugar.

Here, I used half the sugar the recipe specified. More a personal choice than a technical reason, I tend to find the sugar specified in almost all recipes I discovef too sweet... in fact damagingly sweet... lol... emphasis on my personal opinion. So as implied in my post on Surf cakes, under the Sugar section, I try to reduce all sugar quantities in recipes I find. As a general rule, I either use half or two-thirds of sugar required. Often half works well with double the salt. #hackalert

Now a tip here, when the recipe says fluffy, it actually means fluffy... lol... not just lighter and creamier... fluffy... till your batter reminds you of light clouds in the sky, or whipped cream, or the word 'fluffy' itself... don't give up, don't lose hope, keep whisking!!! You're closer now than 30 seconds ago 😃😃

After measuring out 4 scoops of my 1/2 cup of flour to get 500ml of flour, I had to figure out how to get that weird 20ml in the recipe. Weird because I had no 20ml cup!!!

In walk my 80ml cup, 30ml cup and basic arithmetic to tackle our joyous 'story problem!'

Before I continue, in case I've lost you on the 'story problem' from Primary school, let me chip this in:

When I was in Class 3 or so, we started using maths to solve simple daily problems. We called them story problems, an everyday problem like measuring up our sugar accurately on the scale up there, or the measuring the flour as follows. From them, we needed to figure out what our variables were, our constants, what was needed, what the bottle neck was and then work out an equation that gave us the answer!! Whoop whoop!! I loved them... and still do... so I actually get excited when I need to create a formula from simple things like this. I understand if you may not relate, I'm pretty excited about numbers, math and algorithm, but before I bore you further (if you aren't excited), do forgive, I digress... 🙈🙈

So how do we get the needed 20ml of flour? 80ml minus 30ml minus another 30ml gives us 20ml!!! Whoop whoop!! Doesn't that feel smart 😃 If it doesn't, no fears, I love to celebrate so at this juncture I'll do a little dance to that... heeheheee 💃💃💃

Let's continue with the picture story, shall we?

Another moment of dancing for the smarty pants, we just got the 20ml... lololll.... 💃😂💃

This is our salt... doubled... actually 150% more in this case... a teaspoon is 5ml, the recipe said 2ml... #hackalert

Pleeeeeease use butter NOT margarine for this recipe. Don't substitute unless you can confirm it's a butter alternative like Stork margarine. Margarine is awesome for dense and heavy pastries & cakes... not the light and fluffy we're trying to achieve here 🙂🙂

So my Stork baking brick is 500g so getting the 125g was kinda easy... 500g in two gives me 250g in two gives me... you guessed right, 125g! So here we are with approximately 125g of Stork margarine (or in your case real butter if you used that) in our ceramic bowl below waiting to be melted...

I put this in for a minute and watched the rest of unmelted Stork margarine melt into the surrounding hot fluid. I felt letting it all melt in the microwave may 'burn' it. I guess that worked well...

Whisk the batter once more so it's still as fluffly as possible before adding the other ingredients...

At this point, the number of times you mix the dry ingredients into the batter increases how heavy the cake will end up. So, try to fold in the dry ingredients with as few strokes as possible. Ideally, do this by adding the dry ingredients a bit at a time; it often helps. #hackalert

Remember to grease your baking mould!!!

I didn't have two round 20cm tins so I dumped all of mine in one rectangular one... I had to call my awesome Cake maker friend to give me tips in getting two separate pieces in the end. I'll tell you what I did that helped at that moment.

Till you see that your cake no longer rises after 10mins, don't open the oven door! Many a cake fall flat by this sudden change of temperature the oven door (or a suddenly reduced 'flame') causes. If you need to reduce the temperature in any way, try to do so after the tip above and/or when the surface of your cake looks crusty and not soft or smudgy. The no-longer-rising check is often more reliable to me. #hackalert

So in all confession, I burnt the cake... again... 😒... unfortunately my current oven has no gas mark caliberated or temperature caliberated dial. Although I did find this historical explanation on oven calibrations useful, I still have to learn to set my dial just right. I drew out that it should be on low flame, still wondering how low low should be...

Anyway since I did burn the cake, my call to my Cake maker friend became very useful. I needed to know what knife I should use to carve cake... her response, a bread knife or a sharp carving knife would do well... I chose the carving knife. It gave me a smooth cut without having to saw and lose more cake in the crumbs that would have fallen with each stroke. The carving knife I used was that sharp! You can check out these and other knives here if you need a visual or brief descriptions.

The icing (another first for me 😃)

I have never ever in my life made icing till this time. Never... so let's see how it panned out... lol...

So this is where I made a mistake... the recipe said 'icing sugar' but I used normal granulated sugar...

Well, if you've ever made icing before you'd be familiar with the impact of my choice... lol... yes... little crystals distributed within the icing.... not particularly entertaining unless you like biting into sugar crystals in icing... lol!

So lesson learnt, when it comes to baking and confectionery, I will really take note and barely cheat on the type of sugar when its been specifically called out. Icing sugar is icing sugar, I'll stick to that... lol

I love replacing essence with Robertson's Mixed Spices, so this is what I did here. I used 4 shakes to replace the approximate teaspoon of vanilla essence. 

Since I wanted to create contrast with my icing, I ended up using only some of the chocolate powder, and then added the rest and whipped the icing again after I had covered the cake.

I don't own a cake display unit yet, so I created the following from the lid of a plastic container that had a transparent bowl. I chose this container so I could decorate my cake on the lid and cover it with the bowl. No need to move the cake and smudge the icing, and it was good for slicing the cake and simply decorating it. #hackalert... lol

Contrast achieved

One of my friends bought this for me. I found it pretty useful as my other cookie press started to open up at the seams when I made my garlic straws for the first time.

So with my gift, my darker icing, and my covered cake, I continued my first ever icing job and Ta-daaa!!!

My first icing job was born! Pretty unprofessional in look, but the extreme pride in my heart remains. So proud of me 😆

With a piece of my first layered icing cake...

... and my make-shift cake display housing what remained of the cake...

... this lengthy Ndudu tales post comes to an end. On behalf of the Ndudu team, thank you so much for reading. Do leave your comments below...

And do let us know if you tried this recipe and used any of our hacks.

If you learnt anything new, or simply enjoyed this read, please like this post and/or share with others 😊

Till we meet here again, have a wonderful baking experience whenever you get to bake and an awesome Foodie experience with each bite or drink you have 😁

The Instant Nature Valley Oats - we love quickies...

Wonderful rainy morning it was today. The kind of rain my Dad will often comment that farmers say 'wets the earth'; ever so light but never really stopping. I was at home then and was hungry, not in the mood to cook but needed something warm and heavy...

Then I remembered...

One of my all time favourite quickies, Nature Valley Instant Oats!

Now Nature Valley has a snack bar I am currently addicted to. So I don't go on and on about how it looks, here's a picture and a general thought I have of it below:

I loved oats as a child, and still do. As a kid, I think it was because we didn't have it often and I got to have more milk with it. Yum! But as an adult, another reason why I like it is that it's actually instant... all you really need is hot water!

From cooking oats in a pan on fire without having to deal with the burnt part at the bottom, to learning the art of doing same in a microwave without having it spill over whilst it boils, I have discovered the joy of "deɛ wo hia ara ne nsuohyeɛ" ("all you need is hot water" written in Asante twi)

Now as some of you also know, I am mildly lactose intolerant, it started rearing its head as I grew older. So if I can avoid milk, I do. Oats being so filling and high in roughage, it often becomes my choice of carbs on my ever ongoing falling and rising fight against unhealthy weight. And talking about this fight of mine, I try to not add white or brown sugar to my meals. So none in tea, porridges, etc if I can help it.

On one occasion when I wanted to apply the two milk sugar rules above, I had a nutribar in hand and was about to prepare oats the 'instant' way. I was like, 'oh, how will this taste if I dropped in the nutribar' and then helllloooooooooooo... my quickie was born to me! The Nature Valley Instant Oats!

So today, I'll use a set of photos to describe how I make it, then talk a bit about why I love it so much.

You ready? I am!

So here goes...

Getting my hot water ready after laying out all I need... a spoon, my instant oats, my Nature Valley nutribar, my air tight container...

Two heaped desert spoons of instant oats

 In goes my nutribars

Then "deɛ me hia ara ne nsuohyeɛ" ("all I need is hot water")

If you're still wondering why I keep saying that then here's the jist before we continue... lol... a popular Ghanaian radio ad was known by its tagline 'deɛ wo hia ara ne nsuohyeɛ' emphasizing how easy it is to prepare the instant beverage it was promoting. And oh how appropriate I feel it is for my Instant Nature Valley Oats right now... lol... 'cos truly, at the end of the day, "deɛ wo hia ara ne nsuohyeɛ".

Ok, commercial break over... (oh my, I love the unintended pun lol)... let's continue with the recipe...

Depending on how thick you want it, just make sure the hot water covers the both the instant oats and the nutribars.

Cover it tightly and allow it to sit for at least 5mins. 

I choose 5mins because I can be sure the steam and hot water have done a great job at making my oats texture-friendly. However, remember, when you try it, just like the amount of hot water you use, timing is absolutely dependant on how you want your oats.

This is how it will look after your 5mins or more... 

So you stir it quickly with a spoon and get this... our Instant Nature Valley Oats!

Honeyed, creamy and delicious...

... And steaming hot too! I tried to capture the steam rising from my instant quickie but Alas! My phone shot isn't good enough for that...

So now that you know how I make one of my quickies, do share with us how feel about it in the comments below. Was it fun? Easy? Not as awesome as you imagined it? Lol... we'll be waiting for your honest feedback.

Now on to why I love this quickie, which adds to my addiction to it and the nutribar itself... #morereasontolove lol...

• It has no milk but still feels creamy and tasty.
• The honey from the nutribar does well to flavour my oats deliciously. The other ingredients in the nutribar add more life to it than just milk and sugar ever did for me.
• I have no dishes to wash aside my air tight container and my spoon if I made it for myself alone.
• It takes only about 5mins to make.
• If I have access to hot water where I want to eat it, say at work, I can pack the measured-out oats and unwrapped nutribar in just the air tight container, add my spoon and I'm good to have a quick meal whenever I need it. C'est bon!
• I'm convinced there are a few more, but since I can't readily recall them, you now have at least 5 reasons why I love this quickie. #allsmiles

So, as usual, I'm really glad you made it to the end of this post. I hope you learnt something new and hope you also enjoyed reading.

Till we meet here at Ndudu tales again, do have an awesome foodie experience whenever you can make one, and let the world know what our quickie was today... yayy! 

It was nice having you back reading our post at Ndudu tales. And if this was your first time, we're happy you took time to read through. If you learnt something new or simply enjoyed this post, do share with others. Also, remember to leave your comments below, we look forward to reading them. We trust you will enjoy the rest of your day, no matter what's left of it!