Super Simple Chocolate Cake

This super simple chocolate cake is the perfect recipe to reach for when you need to make dessert in a pinch. It's often easy to overlook a homemade recipe for a packet mix, but this is recipe is just as easy to make, but much cheaper. It also tastes so much better. 

You will need: 

• 1 cup Self-raising flour
• 2.5 tbsp. Cocoa Powder
• 1 cup Caster Sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 1/2 cup Milk
• 90 g Vegetable Oil or Butter, Melted
• 1 tsp. Vanilla Essence

Icing

• 2 tsp. Butter, Melted
• 1 cup Icing Sugar
• 1 tbsp. Cocoa Powder
• 1 tbsp. Warm Water

 Step 1. Preheat oven to 180°C and line a 9" round or square cake tin with baking paper. 

Step 2. Sift flour and cocoa powder into a large bowl, then add all of the remaining cake batter ingredients. Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes until well combined. 

Step 3. Pour the mixture into the cake tin and bake for approximately 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. 

Step 4. Remove from the oven, cool for 10 minutes before inverting onto a cooling rack to cool completely. 

Step 5. To a small bowl add all of the icing ingredients and mix until smooth. You want to make a spreadable consistency, so if it's too thick, you can add a little more water. 

Step 6. Move the cake onto a serving plate, cover with the icing mixture and serve. I also sprinkled the top with some sprinkles. 

Notes - 

1. I prefer using vegetable oil instead of melted butter in recipes. I find that you get a much moister cake that stays fresher for longer. Melted butter arguably does add a little more flavour to the recipe than vegetable oil. But, for me, I think the benefits of using oil outweigh that of using butter. 

2. This cake bakes fairly flat, but to keep a nice and smooth iced top, I ice my cakes upside down.