chocolate is one of my favourite things

If you love chocolate too then I have two great recipes to recommend that I enjoy baking. A super easy chocolate cake that can be literally thrown together in minutes, and a chocolate muffin recipe that contains big chunks of real chocolate making them a great energy booster if you're out sailing or climbing - yum!

Chocolate cake

This chocolate cake is one of the easiest and yummiest cake recipes ever. It's made using vegetable oil so there's no creaming of butter and sugar required. It lasts for ages retaining its moist and fudgy texture for days after baking.

2 C flour
1 ¾ C sugar
1 tsp salt
½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
¾ C cocoa
¾ C canola or vegetable oil
1 ¼ C water

Beat all the above ingredients together and then add:

3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

Place in oven at 180 degrees celcius for 35 mins or until the top of the cake bounces back to the touch.

Chocolate Icing

100g butter
65g energy (dark) chocolate - chunky bar size
1 -2 C of icing sugar

Soften butter and chocolate in microwave on low until they can be stirred together (do not melt the butter). Add icing sugar ½ C at a time until it reaches the right consistency for spreading on the cooled chocolate cake.

Chocolate muffins

1 egg
½ C milk
1 C yogurt – I use plain natural unsweetened yogurt
½ C melted butter
1 tsp vanilla

3 tsp baking powder
1/3 C white sugar
2/3 C brown sugar
2 C flour
2 C chocolate crushed – I just bash up an entire bar of king sized energy (dark) chocolate into good bite sized pieces

Put the first five ingredients into a bowl and mix together, then add remaining ingredients and blend until just mixed. Fill muffin tin and bake at 180 degrees celcius for 15-20 mins or until the muffins spring back to the touch.