The Best Chocolate Cake I've Eaten This Side of Wednesday

Being a dutiful sort of relative, I decided that it would be unfair to let my grandma's birthday pass without presenting her with some kind of baked good. My mum suggested that she could whip up another Victoria Sponge, but since we've had Victoria Sponges coming out of our ears in the past few weeks, I said that perhaps we could make something else. After the initial shock, umbrage taken, and sulkily-eaten chocolate bar, my mum extracted Australian Women's Weekly Cooking-Class Cakes from the cupboard (I have no idea how it got here either), and we found what looked like the most amazing, but also science-and-gravity-defying, chocolate cake ever. The issue (apart from it being called a 'family' cake, which implies virtues such as 'sharing' and 'selflessness') is that it largely consists of water. It's still a mystery to me how it has so speedy a baking time. But it works so well, and the proof really is in the pudding.

Family Chocolate Cake (adapted)

You should probably cut all the ingredients in this recipe down by 1/3 for the sake of your health.

2 cups water

3 cups caster sugar (we used golden granulated, because making this cake was a bit of a barrel-scraping exercise)

250g butter

1/3 cup cocoa powder

1 tsp bicarb

3 cups s.r. flour

4 eggs

1. Stare blankly at the recipe, and marvel at how any cake with such a high water content can be anything other than a mud pie.

2. Preheat oven to 180oC. Grease and line a 3.5 litre baking dish (27cm x 33cm). Either make a cake this big and freeze it, or make a reasonable-sized cake, or THROW A MASSIVE CHOCOLATE CAKE PARTY.

3. Combine the water, sugar, butter, and combined sifted cocoa and bicarb in a saucepan. Stir over a medium heat (without boiling) until the sugar dissolves. This will look like a massive watery, fatty mess, but persevere.. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat, and simmer for 5 minutes. If it's not obvious that this molten pot of cocoa-fat-syrup is boiling, go with the benefit of the doubt. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl, and allow to cool to room temperature. Or tepid, if you're impatient.

4. Add flour and egg to the mixture, beat with an electric mixer until smooth, and pour into your prepared cake-pan.

5. Bake for 50 mins, or until a skewer comes out of the cake clean. Leave to stand for 10 minutes, and turn onto a wire rack. When cool, top with THIS Fudge Frosting.

Fudge Frosting

I reiterate: this is not the healthiest cake you will ever eat, but it. is. so. worth. it.

90g butter

1/3 cup water

1/2 cup caster sugar

1 1/2 cups icing sugar

1/3 cup cocoa powder

1. Combine butter, water, and caster sugar in a saucepan. Stir over a medium heat (without boiling) until the sugar dissolves (sound familiar?). 

2. Sift icing sugar and cocoa into a small bowl then gradually stir the hot fat-syrup in until smooth.

3. Refrigerate until frosting thickens. Beat until spreadable, and lavish indulgently atop your moist, chocolate delicacy.

4. Present grandma with a half-eaten cake, and tell her the puppy ate it.