We're writing 2013 and we have reached a speed level that requires fast food, fast transportation and fast decisions, which is quite a challenge to bear. In times like this, most of people are not willing or unfortunately not able to take the time to prepare good quality food. I do still have the time or rather I am still determined to prepare my own food. I don't know why but for some people baking is always linked with high time consumption, which is not true at all. There are some very easy recipes, which I decided to share with you in my 'classics' series. I will share childhood classics whose dough you can prepare in less than 10 minutes. I mean, for the baking part as such, there are still no miracles - it takes a bit more.
I've been a bit absent - physically - because I was traveling a lot in August and September and I also had a lot of work. However in order to relax in the evenings, I took a lot of time to look through my entire collection of cook and baking books. This was the moment where I decided to share some very easy classics in order to motivate the people around me to finally resign from cake mixes. I think the last cake mix I used was when I was in 8th grade.
This lovely chocolate pound cake is the first pound cake I have deliberately baked. It was a hit among my family because I took it out of the oven several hours ago and there are only 3 slices left. It's moist but fluffy. I love cocoa powder even though it is a little bit bitter. First of all I love its smell. It's been a while that I haven't used cocoa powder in my recipes and when I opened the box for baking I was reminded how much I actually do love its smell.
For one loaf you need:
240g butter
240g sugar
4 eggs
200g flour
1 tsp baking powder
50g cocoa powder
Preheat the oven to 180°
In a large bowl mix the softened butter until it gets fluffy. Add the sugar and mix on high speed for 20 seconds. Now you can add the eggs one by one. Then, add the dry ingredients all together and mix until you get an even dough.
Pour the dough into a rectangular cake mold and bake for 45 minutes. Check with the point of the knife if the cake is ready. If it comes out with some wet batter, crumbs or stickiness on it, the cake needs to bake a little bit more time. Depending on the material of the cake mold it might take some 10 minutes more.
If it comes out dry, take it out of the oven and remove it from the mold. Let it cool down until you serve it.
Enjoy!!!!