Mom's Super Moist Silky Chocolate Cake

A few months ago, I went to my friend Joe's wedding. It was the sweetest wedding, and his wife Zeldine looked so amazingly gorgeous and happy it was like an advertisement for marriage! 

Their cake, instead of the usual tall fondant-covered detailed showpiece, was a discreet yet stylish looking cake encircled with sheets of chocolate. My first thought was - bah! I could do that! I was being a complete idiot.

When it was time to cut the cake I was the first in line for a slice, curiosity having gotten the best of me. It was the kind of cake I would buy and guilt eat by myself. It was a tall gooey chocolate cake, layered with chocolate ganache and hazelnuts. It was fireworks, and clouds and dreamy bliss and no more troubles. It was true love.

I swore I would work on replicating this cake until I got it right! I remembered a cake of my mom's from when I was little that I thought might be similar to Joe's one. I finally got her to dig up the recipe for me, and made it just a couple of days later.

What happens here is, you bake a very simple cake, that is quite dry, then soak it with an evaporated milk mixture. The cake soaks it up like a big sponge, and there's just enough to make it super moist without going gooey.

I can't think of a better way to tell someone you love them than this cake. This one is very similar to Joe's cake- no wonder it was chosen for a wedding. You know "falling in love pie" from Waitress? I'm sure that this is the cake version of it..

Chocolate Cake
From My Mom

250 ml (1 cup) cake flour
60 ml (1/4 cup) cocoa powder
250 ml (1 cup) sugar
10 ml (2 tsp) baking powder
1 ml (1/4 tsp) salt
125 ml (1/2 cup) oil
125 ml (1/2 cup) boiling water
4 eggs, separated
5 ml (1 tsp) vanilla extract

1 can (410 g) evaporated milk
125 ml (1/2 cup) sugar
1 tblsp bourbon (or a chocolate, coffee or cream liqueur)(optional)
200 g wholenut chocolate

1) Preheat oven to 180 C. Prepare a 8-9 inch cake tin.

2) Whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder and salt.

3) Whisk together the oil, boiling water, egg yolks and vanilla extract in a separate bowl.

4) Add the wet ingredients to dry and mix thoroughly.

5) Beat egg white to stiff peaks. Add one large tablespoon of the egg whites to the egg mixture, and gently stir in with a large metal spoon. Add the rest of the egg whites, and fold them in gently.

6) Bake for about 40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

7) About 15 minutes before the cake comes out, take 3/4 of the evaporated milk, sugar and bourbon and heat them gently in a small saucepan until the sugar has dissolved.

8) Take the cake out, take it out of the cake tin, place on your serving plate. Gently pour spoonfuls of the evaporated milk mixture on top of the cake, letting it absorb.

9) Heat up the rest of the evaporated milk with the chocolate in the same saucepan until the chocolate is completely melted. Pour over the cake.