Coca Cola...not just for drinking...

Twas' as I sipped upon my daily can of Coke dear readers that the idea struck me. I like coke, I really like cake, so what if I made a Coke Cake?

Knowing that surely this kind of genius could not only strike upon me, I searched upon Google to seek out fellow cakey enthusiasts to uncover a Coke Cake recipe, and sure enough my loyal friend Mr. Google did not fail me. Behold, The Coke Cake Recipe.

So after rummaging through my never-failed-me-yet ingredients cupboard, I began to bake the Coke Cake...

First of course, the can of coke (every good fridge should have one). Then your saucepan (which by the way makes me ponder on the thought, why is it called a saucepan? Very rarely do I cook myself a sauce, in a pan, in fact I'm far more likely to melt cocoa powder, butter and coca cola together in a pan than sauce, yet you don't see me buying a 'coke, cocoa and butter concoction pan', I'm aware that may not be the best working title for advertising purposes, but at least It's more accurate...) I'm rambling, I know, but I had to put that thought out there.

So where was I?

Ah, melting things, my favourite past time to the joy of my parents.

So yes, melt your cocoa, butter and coke in a *pan.

And when you add your coke to the cocoa you'll get a lovely unexplainable chemical reaction between the coke and cocoa whereby the coke will expload into cocoa covered bubbles!

Melty melty...

Next, throw all your melty stuff on top of your dry bits (your flour, sugar...) I actually used light brown muscovado sugar in this recipe because that's all I had, but I believe it did give the final result a more dense and rich flavour which I rather like...

Took every ounce of will power I had in my body right down to my toe nails not to eat the gooey chocolatey mix as it was, but I stayed strong for you readers, I had to see my Coke Cake through to the end.

Next up, Buttermilk! Or 30g of plain yoghurt with a dash of milk if you're all out of Buttermilk...

(I have been known to literally add melted butter to milk in a desperate attempt to make buttermilk, but no, of course you add yoghurt to BUTTERmilk to make buttermilk...)

Mixy mixy...

I was sceptical about this make shift Buttermilk, but it didn't seem to have any kind of detremental effects to the final product so I shall endorse it's usage...

And of course, this blog being heavily scientific an' all, I feel I owe it to you lovely people to do a bit of detective work in to this 'Buttermilk' and tell you why it exists and pops up in recipes I wish to make but never have the stuff...

So here you have an explanation from the ever reliable source that is Wikipedia:

'Originially, buttermilk was the liquid left behind after churning butter out of cream. It also refers to a range of fermented milk drinks (mmm lovely).

The tartness of buttermilk is due to the presence of acid in the milk. This is primarily due to lactic acid, a byproduct naturally produced by lactic acid bacteria from fermenting lactose (that's 'rotting' lactose to you and I)'

I know, I can hear you running to get your hands on some Buttermilk as I speak...who wouldn't want to add fermenting lactose to their cakes?!

So anyway, there you have it, don't say you never learn anything from my blog...

Back to the important stuff now, making Cake!

So by this point, with half a can of coke left, I felt there was not enough cokey goodness in my cake, so I chucked the rest in of course.

Bubbles!

Mixed it into a smiley face intentionally...

And baked it! I was rather relieved that it baked and rose, because other attempts at very liquidy cakes have left me with a squidgy, unrisen brick of cake, which although very tasty, is always a sad day that a Cake has not fulfilled its cakey duty.

Next I melted some more butter, cocoa and icing sugar together (excuse the attractive lumps of icing sugar...) and poured it over my cake so all the icing goodness seeped into my cake...

It was a delicious cake dear readers! More like hot chocolatey sponge pudding when it were still warm. There were sooo many little bubbles in the cake I'm guessing because of the bubble fest the coke caused.

Admittedly, the cake did not taste of coke as I had hoped, but I do think it lent a big hand in making the texture really light and spongey.

I stuck my cake in the fridge overnight as well and it was even nicer the next day, kinda like fridge cake so very solid but the icing had merged with the cake making it into a lovely chewy cokey chocolatey cake, which is never a bad thing.

Nom nom nom.