Steamed Moist Chocolate Cake

Chocolate cake. Notoriously difficult to photograph. Especially on a gloomy day. It was a cloudy day when I baked or rather steamed this cake.

I had no intention of baking a chocolate cake. Why? Because I still wanted to become Lara Croft. wahahaha!!! Right.

Actually this cake came about because I had quite a bit of evaporated milk left after making Salted Egg Yolk Chicken. Must not waste! So I recalled a recipe for Steamed Chocolate Cake that uses evaporated milk. This is surely a very good excuse to make chocolate cake.

This cake is very easy to make. You just dump the evaporated milk, butter and sugar into a saucepan to melt the butter and dissolve the sugar. Then let it cool a bit and then add vanilla extract, rum and beaten eggs. Next fold in flour and cocoa powder. And then steam away.

I did not make any frosting because a good chocolate cake can stand on its own. The cake did not rise very much and has a moist and dense texture.

My only regret is reducing sugar from 200g to 180g. It was barely sweet with slight bitter taste from the cocoa powder. That's ok for me because I don't like things too sweet but still, it would have been better a tad sweeter. However, if served with frosting, then it would have been just nice.

I did mention that it was a gloomy day but luckily the sun showed up and I could get some nice shots with the help of my el cheapo styrofoam reflectors.

And so you ask, how many slices did I whack? Just that one slice. Bluff ah? No, true one.....

Steamed Moist Chocolate Cake

Recipe source : Adapted from Cooking Crave

Ingredients :

- 180g butter, cut into cubes to make melting faster

- 180g sugar (suggest 200g if not frosting the cake)

- 200ml evaporated milk

- 2 eggs, lightly beaten

- 100g self-raising flour

- 50g cocoa powder

- 1 tsp vanilla extract

- 2 tbsp rum

Method :

1. Grease and line an 8" pan and set aside.

2. Sift flour and cocoa powder together into a mixing bowl and use a whisk to evenly mix. Set aside.

3. Put butter, sugar and evaporated milk into a saucepan and heat the mixture over the stove. Keep stirring and once the butter has melted and sugar dissolved, take off the heat and pour into a large mixing bowl to cool.

4. Once the milk mixture is cool (barely warm is ok), add vanilla extract, rum and eggs. Whisk to combine (heat up your steamer to get ready).

5. Sift the flour/cocoa mixture into the milk mixture and use a whisk to fold dry ingredients into the wet ingredient (the batter is runny).

6. Pour batter into the prepared pan and cover the pan loosely with aluminum foil.

7. Steam over medium heat for 45 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center of the cake comes out clean.

8. Cool the cake in the pan before removing from the pan.