Baking has always been my therapy. I bake when I’m happy, sad, stressed or bored. Lately, I’ve been feeling out of sorts. Just didn’t feel like baking or doing anything. Even my yoga practice has gone out the window; from practicing six times a week, it became twice a week and sometimes I can’t even complete the whole primary series. To get myself out of this rut, I’ve decided that I shall make a nostalgic cake – chocolate pound cake.

My earliest memory of chocolate pound cake is actually Sara Lee Chocolate Pound cake. It can be found in supermarkets. As a child, I loved that cake – I probably won’t like it as much now but back then, it was such a treat to get a slice of that cake. It was one of my favourite snacks growing up and I would always ask my parents to get it when they went to the supermarket. I usually find that the simpler the cake, the more beautiful it is. It is also a reminder to enjoy the simple pleasures of life – that sense of contentment as a child, enjoying the slice of chocolate pound cake. Oh those were the days…

Okay! Enough moping around, back to baking business. My most recent craze is Donna hay’s recipes. This is an adaptation from her chocolate pound cake recipe. This recipe was very interesting to me because I’ve never mixed cocoa powder with boiling hot water before and it became a thick chocolate fudge. Initially I was worried that the cake would turn out dry but it was moist and chocolatey – absolutely perfect!

Ingredients

1. 100g cocoa powder
2. 180ml boiling water
3. 1 tbsp coffee granules
4. 180g unsalted butter
5. 120g caster sugar
6. 80g brown sugar
7. 1 tsp vanilla essence
8. 5 eggs
9. 150g plain flour

Ingredients for the ganache

1. 160g dark chocolate
2. 20g unsalted butter
3. 1/2 tsp salt
4. 30ml milk

Directions

Preparation time: 15min
Baking time: 70min or when the skewer comes out clean

1. Preheat oven to 160°C
2. Dissolve the coffee granules with boiling hot water
3. Add in the cocoa powder into the boiling water in a bowl and mix until smooth. Set aside to cool
4. Place the butter and both the sugars in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat on high speed until light and creamy.
5. Add the vanilla, eggs and cocoa mixture and beat until well combined
6. Add the flour and mix until just combined
7. Pour the mixture into a lightly greased 21cm x 10cm loaf tin lined with non-stick baking paper
8. Bake for 70 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer.
9. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes before turning out on to a wire rack to cool completely

To make the ganache

1. Melt the chocolate and butter in the microwave in bursts of thirty seconds. Make sure that you don’t over do it if not the chocolate would separate
2. Add in the milk and salt and stir gently with a wooden or silicon spoon until a nice smooth ganache is formed
3. Spread the ganache over the cooled cake

If I knew how to bake this when I was a child, my parents would have saved loads of money from buying Sara Lee Pound cakes!