Classical Dark Cocoa Cake

Now this is the typical cocoa cake you will find in any home you go in Istanbul. This is what I call mummy's cake because we have grown up with this type of cake, baked in this round tins with a hole in the middle. Generally mummies bake a two-coloured cake for their children to have when they come back from school, to have at 'teatime'. Teatime is a very important cultural phenomenon for Turkish people. We like to have one savoury pastry (generally a 'borek' or a 'simit'), plus one dessert/sweet cake with our tea. Tea time can be any hour between 3 and 6 in the afternoon. If I am not baking anything special, I tend to go along with this cake because I always would like to have something on my cake stand. If I don't have time, if it is not for a special occasion, this cake will save my day. I have another recipe for this cake, which I call 'Mummies Cake With Walnuts and Bitter Chocolate' (it is coming soon). You can try different ingredients like, lemon or orange rind, walnuts, hazelnuts, bitter chocolate, or you can make a plain batter, pour in the half, then add cocoa to the other half and pour it on top to have a marbled look. These are all classical cakes for my family. Keep following this blog and you will see different ideas about this same recipe. Today, I went with double cocoa effect. And it tastes really light and nice.

Ingredients:
3 eggs
1 and 1/4 cups of granulated sugar
3 cups of flour
1 heap teaspoon of baking powder 
1 heap teaspoon of vanilla sugar or 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 cup of olive oil
1 and 1/4 cups of milk
3 heap table spoons of cocoa
4 table spoons of chocolate chips

How to:
1. I start with beating the eggs and then adding the sugar and beating them together for 3 minutes. 
2. After that, I add the milk, olive oil, cocoa, vanilla sugar and mix everything thoroughly. To this liquid mixture, I add the flour and baking powder together and mix in high speed. 
3. The last step is to stir in the chocolate chips. I do not over mix after I add the chocolate chips because if you do it with a mixer the chocolate chips might sink to the bottom. So I stirred with a spatula, then poured the whole batter into my tin. You can of course use a round or angular tin. It is very important for me to use this cake tin because that is the whole point of this 'mummies' cake'.
4. Bake in the pre-heated 175 degrees oven for 45 minutes. Leave to cool before you slice this cake. For extra indulgence and decoration, you can add some chocolate sauce on top.

It will keep fresh for a week on your counter. You can also keep it in the fridge the same week or your freezer up to 3 weeks. Eat and enjoy this simple and quick recipe that will make you feel cosy.