Lets Bake!

S.O being at home this week seemed like a perfect time to do some baking! Now, I am no Mary Berry but I do enjoy the occasional bit of baking and today was cake day. Normally my baking is limited to cup cakes as they are easy to do, but this time I decided to try something different, a two toned cake! One half vanilla and the other half chocolate...yum!


Ingredients:
Plain flour(or self raising)
Caster sugar 
Butter 
Eggs
Baking soda
Vanilla essence
Cocoa powder 
Icing sugar

Utensils :
Baking tin x2 (I only had one heart shape tin so had to cook the cake halves one after the other)
Scales
Mixing bowl
Electric mixer
Grease proof paper
Teaspoon
Fork
Spatula

This is an incredibly easy recipe to follow and make... S.O lets bake!


Pre-Heat the oven at 170 degrees celcius

Firstly you need a bowl, scale and mixer!
Add 4oz of flour, 4oz butter and 4oz caster sugar into the bowl.
Next crack two eggs into the bowl (making sure there are no pieces of shell in it of course) 
Then add 1tsp of baking soda and 3 drops of vanilla essence.



The next part is even easier!




Mix it all together until you have a smooth batter, without any lumps.





Before you put the first cake into the tin you need to make sure the baking tin your going to use has been greased (to prevent it all from sticking to the sides of the tin). To do this you take a small amount of butter and rub it all around the inside of the tin. As you can see I chose a heart shaped tin to make my cake extra cute!


Firstly cover the inside of the tin in butter. Then place a bit of grease proof paper under the tin and trace around the outside of the tin with a pencil. Then cut out the shape and place it in the bottom of the tin.

Next pour the mixture into the tin and place in oven for around 32 mins (checking every few minutes, without opening the oven, that it cooking okay).

While the first cake is in the oven, wash up the mixing bowl and we are ready to start the mixture for the second half of the cake.

This cake follows the same process and has the same ingredients apart from one extra yummy bit, cocoa powder!

Add 4oz of butter, flour and caster sugar to your bowl. Followed by cracking two eggs into the mixtue and adding 1tsp of baking soda.

Next add 10 grams (just short of half an oz) of cocoa powder into the cake mixture. Because you are adding more dry ingredients I tend to add a little extra butter to even it out and ensure a moist cake.

Then mix it all together. Once your first cake is done, remove it from the oven and turn it out onto a cooling rack, removing the cake from the tin. Once the tin is cooled, butter and line the tin as before and pour in the chocolate mixture. Then place in the oven for 32 mins.

 
Once cooked turn the chocolate cake out onto another cooling rack, removing the tin and grease proof paper.

While the cakes are cooling, you can make the icing. This cake would taste nice with regular or vanilla butter cream icing, or even a chocolate glaze. But for mine I chose to make chocolate butter cream icing.

To do this place room temperature butter and icing sugar into a jug and mix together using a fork until smooth. Carry on adding butter and icing sugar until you have enough icing for two layers on your cake. To get the chocolate flavour add coco powder and mix in, adding more butter if necessary. I don't use measurements for the icing as I just taste it as I go along!

 
Finally apply a thick layer of butter icing on one of your cake layers. Place the un-iced cake layer on top of the icing and cover the top with the remaining icing.

And there you have it a two toned vanilla and chocolate cake! I finished mine off with some fruity confetti for some added colour, decorate yours however you like and enjoy!

S.O love xoxo