The best things in life are {dairy} free?

After a beautiful couple of days in Hobart (I promise to post pics soon!) I was looking forward to some downtime at home. That normally involves lots of time in my kitchen.

I couldn't wait to head over to my godson's place for morning tea with his fam on Saturday morning and promised to take some treats. 

I've admitted to the fact that I'm not much of a baker before. It's no secret, I love to eat sweets but I'm more partial to cooking savoury goodies. So I wanted to keep it simple . . . I was thinking scones with jam and cream or a tea cake or something . . . until his Mum said she's trying dairy free for a couple of weeks.

Eeeeeekkk!

Dietary requirements, I do not do!

I turned to trusty google to find something suitable and was freaked out by some weird ingredients and complex techniques many dairy free recipes called for. 

Then I found an oh-so-simple dairy free chocolate cake that seemed too good to be true.

They were deliciously moist (the sort that stick to the roof of your mouth and get stuck in your gums between your teeth) and really really easy to make. I went for the cupcake option, but I'm sure the full sized cake would be yum, especially if served for dessert with cream. Oh whoops, what was that I said about dairy free!?

Dairy free chocolate cake

Serves 12

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups plain flour

3/4 cup sugar

1/3 cup cocoa

1 tspn salt

1 tspn vanilla essence

1 Tbspn white vinegar

1 tspn bicarb soda

1/3 cup olive or canola oil

1 cup water

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Grease a 12 hole muffin tray or round cake tin
2. In a mixing bowl, place the sugar, then sift in the flour and cocoa. Place the bicarb on top and add the vinegar, essence, salt, oil and water
3. Use a balloon whisk, stir all ingredients until well combined. Do not overmix
4. Pour mixture into cake tin or muffin tray. Bake the cake for 35-40 mins or the muffins for 20 mins

NB. It's quite a runny batter, so I recommend mixing in a jug or bowl with a lip so that you can pour it straight into the tray. I made up a simple icing of icing sugar, cocoa and water and then topped with store-bought flower decorations.

Recipe from here