Sour-Cream Chocolate Cake

Almost two years since our last update, omg! 😆

We have been very very very lazy in updating this blog, but we are still baking frequently especially when Phoon Huat is having sales soooooo often!

Ever since joining a Facebook group that is dedicated to baking, we were always influenced by all the posts posted in the group as they all look super nice and yummy. There is always a certain 'trend' going on and a lot of bakers would be baking the same category of bakes and post in the group such as chiffon cakes (😍😍😍), breads, cheese tarts (in time with BAKE cheese tarts opening) and many many more. We've tried chiffon cakes from recipes posted there and they were really good!

Other than all baking related posts, there are also several bakers who are really good in piping buttercream flowers and they look really pretty! Oink was inspired by those pretty buttercream flowers, especially those made with Korean buttercream as the texture looks slightly different from standard buttercream - glossy, dewy, almost like real flowers. After much research, we (finally) made buttercream for the first time and we were quite surprised that it is quite similar to the Korean buttercream as seen from the posts even though it has a different name to it. Yummy too, quite like buttercream on old school cakes! Oink also succeeded in piping pretty flowers even with no experience of piping! So happyyyyyyy! 🎉🎊🎉🎊 Will definitely share the photos next time!

As we like our buttercream flowers to be of a light colour, we were looking for a good dark-coloured cupcake to pair it up with the flowers. We stumbled upon this chocolate cake recipe and decided to try it and it turns out soooo good that we couldn't stop thinking of it! This is absolutely the kind of base we would use together with our buttercream flowers, or even just baking it to eat the cake on its own! The whole process is one of the easiest too!

Check out the recipe below~

Sour-Cream Chocolate Cake

Ingredients for Chocolate Cake

• 150ml sour cream or crème frâiche
• 2 eggs
• 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
• 200g plain flour
• 40g cocoa
• 200g caster sugar
• ¾ teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 200g unsalted butter, softened

Ingredients for Chocolate Cake

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
2. Line and grease 2 x 20cm (8 inch) round cake tins.*
   *We lined cupcake trays instead!
3. In a small bowl or jug, lightly whisk together the sour cream, eggs and vanilla extract.
4. Place the flour, cocoa, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and butter into the bowl of a stand mixer with the flat paddle attachment. Beat on low speed until the butter is incorporated into the dry ingredients.
5. Slowly add the egg mixture and beat until the batter is thoroughly mixed.
6. Pour the batter evenly into the prepared cake tins and bake for about 30 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.**
   **We baked for 15 min since we made cupcakes instead of full cakes.
7. Place the cake tins on a wire rack and let the cakes cool in the tins for about 10 minutes, before turning them onto the wire rack to cool completely. 

Recipe adapted from:

Eat, Little Bird

We wanted to reduce the amount of sugar at first, but thankfully we didn't as the cake did not turn out to be too sweet. Just nice to our liking, slightly more towards the bitter side. It is a very moist cake and we can have several of it in one go. As we were so in love with the cake, we ended up ditching the plan to make the icing and just ate the cake on its own. Maybe the next time, we will decorate it with our buttercream flowers!

We will definitely try to update this blog more too! 😊