Chocolate cake (like Awfully Chocolate)

The boy invited his friends home for a little party and as with our past tradition, we baked him a cake.  Chocolate cake is the natural choice.  Instead of the tried and tested recipe that I always used, I decided to search for something easier.

Found one that claims it's from the owner of Twelve Cupcakes and that the result is almost like Awfully Chocolate.  I adapted it and made a slight variation.  You can go into the link to see the original recipe.  Here's what I used:

Group 1
90g Cadbury Old Gold Dark Chocolate (70% cocoa)
1 cup freshly brewed coffee
(Melt chocolate with the heat from the fresh coffee)

Group 2
2 eggs
1/2 cup corn oil
1 cup buttermilk (add 1 tbsp lemon juice to 1 cup fresh milk and let stand for 10 minutes)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Group 3
300g sugar
215g self-raising flour
25g Hershey's cocoa powder
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
(Sift together)

Group 4
100ml whipping cream
20g butter
260g Cadbury Old Gold Dark Chocolate (70% cocoa)

Here're the steps:

1.   Preheat oven to 160 deg c
2.   Whisk eggs from Group 2 till fluffy then add in the ingredients from Group 1 + the rest of the ingredients from Group 2 and combine thoroughly
3.   Add ingredients from Group 3 to the mixture in Step 2 and mix thoroughly
4.   Line baking pans with parchment paper
5.   Pour batter from Step 3 into pan and bake for 30 - 40 minutes (or as long as required.  Cake is done if a skewer comes out clean when poked into the middle of the cake)
6.  Remove cake from oven and cool on rack
7.  While cake is baking, melt ingredients in Group 4 over a bain marie
8.  Remove from heat and continue stirring till all chocolate and butter is melted and the mixture is thick and shiny
9.  When cake and chocolate fudge are all cooled, assemble cake and frost to liking

I do like the taste.  It's not too sweet and is definitely rich and chocolatey.  It stayed soft even after sitting in my chiller for 4 hours.  This recipe is definitely a keeper!

Belgian Waffles

Bought a waffle maker and I've been looking for a recipe that the family likes.  I think found it.  It's definitely a keeper!

Taken from Taste of Home, I halved the recipe and it yielded 3 waffles with some batter left behind.  Could have been 4 if I didn't over-fill the pan for the first one.

Here's the ingredient list:

1 cup flour
3/8 cup sugar
1 3/4 tsp baking powder
1 egg, separate (I happened to have only large eggs and it had a double yolk :P)
3/4 cup milk
114g butter, melted
1/2 tsp vanilla (I think I added more)

1.  Melt butter and leave to cool.
2.  Mix flour, sugar and baking powder.
3.  Lightly beat egg yolk, add in milk, vanilla and the cooled butter.
4.  Mix the liquids into the flour and mix well, getting rid of the lumps.
5.  Beat the egg whites still stiff.
6.  Fold egg whites into the batter.
7.  Let the batter stand for a while before making your waffles.

Here's the waffle.  Don't mind the holes haha!