OMG – It’s Andrea McCullagh’s Black Midnight Cake

Following on from announcing the winner in our  OMG it’s a Kitchen Aid Competition, we would like to bring you another great recipe from our short-list.  Andrea says she makes this cake for all her family birthdays.  Well we had a family birthday in our family last week so I made this cake for my little boy’s special day.

The cake was a huge success.  It uses ingredients that most of us would have in our fridge or pantry, it doesn’t require tremendous skill, it can be whipped up in a matter of minutes and this is definitely a recipe that works!

Andrea McCullagh’s BLACK MIDNIGHT CAKE

Andrea McCullagh's Black Midnight Cake

• 2 1/4 cups plain flour
• 1 2/3 cups castor sugar
• 2/3 cup cocoa
• 1 1/4 tsps baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/4 cups water
• 3/4 cup (130g) softened butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Pre-heat oven to 180C.

Place all ingredients in a large mixing bowl and beat until well combined.  Pour into a prepared cake pan.

Place in oven and cook for 45 mins.

Leave in cake tin for 5 mins then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Decorate with your favourite icing.

This is a very dark cake so I can understand why it’s called ‘Black Midnight’.  I cooked the cake in a 21cm round cake tin that I lightly greased with butter and then dusted the base and sides with plain flour.  As you can see from the images the cake rose very evenly.  Once it was out of the oven I let it sit for five minutes before turning out on a wire rack to cool.

I transferred it to a serving plate and iced it with a chocolate ganache made from 200gms dark chocolate and a third of a cup of cream, melted in a double boiler then set aside to cool to room temperature.  I decorated the cake with fresh blueberries – midnight blue!

The cake cut very well, was moist and had great flavour.  There was a lot of cake left over and my daughter asked if she could the remains to school.  I said, ‘Leave that cake alone, it’s staying right here’!

Black Midnight cake decorated in chocolate ganache with fresh blueberries

Thank you Andrea for a great recipe.  Everyone should add this simple but delicious chocolate cake to their repertoire.