Betty, you're making chocolate cake - in a rice cooker?

The reveal:  my hot, steaming chocolate cake, cooked in a rice 
cooker in nine minutes.  Thanks, Betty.

With my birthday looming, thoughts turn to chocolate. Actually, that's nonsense.  My thoughts are always on chocolate.

I've said before on these pages that my wife can walk past chocolate bars in a shop without a blink, yet I am frozen to the spot, gibberring ever so quietly until I've made the inevitable purchase. Females have two X chromosomes, whereas males have one X and one Y chromosome.  This is a well-established fact.  I seem to have one and a half X and a spot of Y thrown in.  I suspect the additional bit of X I have is the little-known or understood chocolate chromosome.

So to get to the point, boy do I love chocolate cake, hence the birthday reference. Now shop bought chocolate cake is always, to my mind, an experiment in exactly how much sugar you can consume without hallucinating.  I'm useless at making my own and my wife is brilliant, so that's all good.

I could, of course, cheat and resort to the packet cake mix stuff in the supermarket.  But you do risk a raised eyebrow of disapproval in public unless you double-bag the box and hide the contents. However... I was recently introduced to the pampered chef rice cooker. Yes, rice cooker.  It's a plastic, non-staining microwave-able device with a particularly clever inner lid that prevents starchy water bubbling over the top or the whole thing exploding alarmingly. Now get this.  You can cook a hot chocolate sauce, chocolate cake in the rice cooker - in nine minutes.

And so I became aquainted with Mrs Betty Crocker. I'm not familiar with her work, but I bought her devils food cake mix and a tub of chocolate icing. Opening the supermarket shopping with curtains closed so neighbours can't see the cake packet mix therefore avoiding the eyebrow routine,  I followed the packet instructions - three eggs, oil, water, mix blah, blah.  Spread half the contents of the chocolate icing (not frosting) on the bottom of the rice cooker before pouring the astonishingly wet cake mix on top. Lids on and into the microwave, dead centre of the revolving bit, and press nine minutes.

PING! Take plate, open lids, put plate on top of rice cooker and turn over. Lordy. A plate of steaming chocolateyness that prompted a small ripple of applause from the men - yes, men - at my last cooking show. The pic above tells it all.  I'm considering offering Betty my hand in marriage.

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