Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:

3 cups plain flour (Maida)
2 cups sugar

1/2 cup oil
3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
a pinch salt
2 tbsp vinegar
2 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/2 - 2 cups water

For Icing:
200 ml fresh cream
Raspberry Jam (optional)
3 tbsp cocoa powder (sweetened or unsweetened. If it is unsweetened, add a tbsp of sugar to it)
1/4 cup water
handful strawberries (or any other fruit that you like - berries and kiwis go the best with chocolate cakes)

Method:

• Pre-heat the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
• Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl.
• Add vanilla essence and oil. Mix well.
• Slowly add the water and keep mixing thoroughly. Stop adding water once the cake batter starts falling in folds. It is just the right consistency.
• Line 2 nine inch moulds with oil and cocoa powder (you can use flour but it leaves white border on a chocolate cake whereas, with cocoa powder, that problem doesn't arise.)
• Pour the batter in the moulds and bake for about 25 minutes. Check after 20 minutes whether the cake is done. If you stick a fork or a knife in the centre of the cake and it comes out clean, then it's done.
• Let it cool before taking it out on a plate.

For Icing:

• Spread some raspberry jam on the first cake and place the second cake on it. (You can even use whipped cream here instead of raspberry jam if you prefer.)
• Make some chocolate sauce by boiling together cocoa powder and water. Pour this sauce on the cake and refrigerate for an hour
• Meanwhile, whip the cream until it has thickened enough that it stays up. Make sure you don't over-whip and make butter. Refrigerate it.
• After an hour, pull out both cake and cream and decorate as you like it. In the cake above, I have used  14 number star nozzle to make a circle in the centre and placed a strawberry and slices of kiwi on it. Finally, using a shell nozzle, I created a ring outline to the cake.

• For this cake, I spread the whipped cream all over the cake evenly, especially the sides. And then, decorated with fruit as wanted.

Vegan Icing:

• Pour chocolate sauce all over the cake. Let it cool in a refrigerator. 
• Melt some white chocolate. Dip a fork in the melted chocolate and randomly spread ribbons on the cake.