Chocolate Cake with White Chocolate Lime Frosting

Here is yet another recipe that I tried out of the fabulous Chocolate! Cookbook by Kathryn Hawkins. The Man and I rated this cake just as highly as the previous Chocolate Truffle Cake but it probably took me 1/4 of the time to make it! This pretty much automatically makes it better, because I am less exhausted at the end, and more ready to eat cake!

The trick with this cake is that it uses the shortcut of mayo instead of mixing in the fat and eggs separately. Since mayo is kind of tangy by itself, it probably wouldn't work in every cake. But since this cake has a very lime-y flavor simply from the icing, I think it works very well, beside making it easier to make, and incredibly moist!

2 cups self rising flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 1/4 cup light brown sugar (I used dark brown)
1 tsp vanilla extract
scant 1 cup cold water
scant 1 cup plain good-quality mayonnaise


Icing:
3.5 oz white chocolate
1/4 stick unsalted butter
1 cup confectioner's sugar
finely grated rind and juice 1 lime

1) Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 9 in cake pan. (She says it should be 2 in. high, but I used my 1.5 in pan and it did ok.)

2) Sift the flour, cocoa, and baking powder together into a mixing bowl and stir in the brown sugar. Make a well in the middle and add the vanilla, water and mayo. Whisk all the ingredients together until they form a thick, smooth batter.

3) Transfer to the prepared cake pan and bake in the oven for 40 min (or until the cake feels firm to the touch.) Allow to cool in the pan for 30 min.

*note: I saw Julia Child do a cake show once, and once she poured the batter in the pan, she tilted it around so that the batter oozed up to touch the very edge at the top of the pan. This is a precaution for if the cake rises, then tilting the batter around the edges of the pan will help the cake not to sink in the middle when you take it out. I did this with this cake, and it worked wonderfully!

Icing:

While the cake is baking, break the chocolate and butter into a small heatproof bowl and melt over a saucepan of gently simmering water. Remove from the water and sift in the confectioners sugar. Add the lime rind and mix together. (At this point it should be on the dry side and extremely stiff.) Add sufficient lime juice to form a thick, smooth frosting. Spread over the cooled cake, and decorate with lime rind or slices.