I didn’t know my Ouma Ann very well because she died when I was young, but I knew this was her recipe because my mom made it for us all the time, until we were old enough to start baking it ourselves. Now my girls bake this cake and Ouma’s memory lives on in the sharing of this recipe.
Ingredients
2 cups cake flour
1½ cups castor sugar
1 cup cooking oil
1 cup boiling water
2 tsp baking powder
6 tbs cocoa powder
8 eggs
Method
Pre-heat your oven to 180°C and grease and line one deep cake tin, or 2 smaller round sandwich cake tins. Mix the oil and boiling water and set this aside to cool. Separate the eggs and place the yolks and egg whites into 2 large separate bowls. Add the sugar and vanilla essence to the egg yolks and then beat them with a hand-held blender until they are thick and pale yellow. Add the flour, cocoa and baking powder and continue to blend. Finally add the water and oil.
Using clean beaters, whisk the egg whites until they are thick and stiff and then fold in the remaining teaspoon of baking powder. Fold this into the chocolate mixture, keeping the batter light and airy. Pour it into your cake tins and bake for approximately 40 minutes or until a skewer, when inserted into the cake, comes out clean.
NB: You can ice and decorate it as you wish.
Recipe from “Pink Gin and Fairy Cakes” cookbook.