Unlike the other cake, this one is quicker to make, cheaper (less chocolate!), much less rich and still very delicious. As the recipe says, it has this innate fudgeness which really makes it nice. In case you woundering like I did as to how it can work without having self-raising flower -- the lemon juice contains citric acid (H₃C₆H₅O₇) which reacts with the bi-carb soda (NaHCO₃) to produce (amoung other products such as H₂O), carbon dioxide gas (CO₂) which makes the cake light and fluffy. You may notice this reaction when you mix in the dry ingredients. In theory, instead of mixing lemon juice with the milk, sour milk can be used instead as is acidic on its own (note: I have NOT tried this theory out).

Though the recipe doesn't call for icing, I think it is better with it. I have used CSR Chocolate Icing Packet Mix (basically just Icing Sugar and Cocoa) prepared using the very simple directions on the packet and it worked well. Really any would do, so just use your favourite Chocolate Icing recipe.

Will. (2005-05-02)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of milk
• the juice of 1 lemon
• 90g (3oz) soft butter
• 1 cup of sugar (white sugar works best)
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons of cocoa
• 1½ cups of plain flour
• ½ teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda

Method

1. Strain the lemon juice into the milk and allow it to stand.
2. Cream the butter and sugar until light in colour. (use an electic beater if available)
3. Add the egg and beat again until fluffy.
4. Fold in the curdled milk.
5. Sift all the dry ingredients into another bowl.
6. Fold all the dry ingredients into the creamed butter mixture.
7. Butter a 22-centimetre cake tin.
8. Pour in the batter.
9. Bake at 175°C (347°F) for 45 minutes.

Cake before cooking, if you look closely, you can see the bubbles

From:

Everything2 (2002).
Chocolate cake (thing)
http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1305834

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