Cake
This is the most basic cake recipe. In French it is called a “quatre-quarts”, which translates to “four-fourths”, because the ingredients are made out of four equal parts.
The quantities below are for a standard rectangular 25x7 cm or 9x3 inch cake tin. Add 25% for a 30 cm or 12 inch cake tin.
Should you wish, you can also make this into a chocolate cake, and/or top this with a chocolate ganache.
- 200 g white sugar
- 200 g butter
- 200 g flour
- 4 eggs
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1.5 tsp baking powder (if you are not using self-raising flour)
Optionally turn this into a chocolate cake:
- 40 g cocoa
- 40 g sugar
- 75 ml milk
- 100 g dark chocolate
Optional ganache topping:
- 100 ml cream
- 125 g dark chocolate
- 30 g butter
- preheat the oven to 160 °C
- grease the cake tin, line it with baking paper
- bring the butter to room temperature
- add the sugar, butter and salt to a bowl
- mix for 3 to 5 minutes until creamy
- add the eggs one by one while you continue mixing
- mix until airy
- using a spatula, mix in the flour and baking powder
- chop the chocolate into pieces (or use chocolate chips)
- mix the cocoa, sugar and milk
- mix this into the base using a spatula
- add chopped chocolate
- bake for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick or knife comes out clean
- let it cool down before removing it from the tin
- once the cake is cooled, bring the cream to a soft boil
- remove from the heat
- stir in the chocolate until it has melted and is fully incorporated
- stir in the butter
- pour over the cake