Simple Chocolate Cake

‘Life without cake is like cake without chocolate’, this quote was on a birthday card that my son got a while ago and I love it. I clearly love chocolate cake too. I have a few good recipes in my repertoire – a rich chocolate fudge cake, a nice birthday cake and now a new one ….. ‘simple chocolate cake (with fudge icing)’

I came across this recipe when flicking through a food magazine, it’s by Mary Berry and in her new book ‘Fast Cakes’. I’m a big Mary Berry fan and I like the idea of a fast cake too, so I had to try it.

It is not a big fancy cake. It’s the kind of cake that would be lovely for dessert after a Sunday lunch/dinner or just if you have some friends or family around.

Ingredients:

2 level tablespoons of cocoa powder
2 tablespoons of hot water
100 g baking spread, from fridge. (I use salted butter at room temp)
100 g caster sugar
2 large eggs
100 g self – raising flour
1 level teaspoon baking powder

For the icing:

25 g cocoa powder, sifted
40 g butter, softened (the recipe doesn’t state salted or unsalted, I tend to use unsalted for icing but only had salted and it was still lovely)
2 – 3 tablespoons milk (I used 3)
100 g icing sugar, sifted

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 180 (160 fan). Grease a 20 cm deep cake tine and line it with non stick baking paper. If using a foil container, grease well.
Blend the cocoa with the hot water in a large bowl and leave to cool. Add the remaining cake ingredients and beat with an electric mixer until light and fluffy.
Spoon into the tin and bake in the pre-heated for 20-25 minutes, or until the cake has shrunk slightly from the sides of the tin and springs back when lightly pressed with a finger.
Turn out, remove the paper and leave to cool on wire rack.
To make the icing, measure the cocoa, butter, milk and icing sugar into a bowl. Beat well to a light, smooth consistency.
Spread over the top of the cake and swirl attractively with a round bladed knife. Leave to set before serving.

Hints and tips:

Mary Berry often suggests baking spread (margarine or stork, I guess?), I always use butter in baking so don’t adhere to that part of any recipe. Rule breaker eh
The cake is not a deep big cake – I just want to make that clear. It’s a nice simple cake that serves 8
I took the cake out of the oven after 20 minutes as it looked done. Each oven is different – your oven might need the full 25 minutes, but do check it at around 20-22 minutes to be sure.
I didn’t put the full amount of icing on the cake, I kept a bit back as I thought it was a lot on one shallow cake. Turns out that my kids LOVED the icing, so maybe I should have used the whole lot.
I forgot (ahem didn’t bother) to sift the icing sugar for the fudge icing. It meant I had a few small white lumps in my icing which I discovered when I spread it on the cake. Do as the lady says – sift it.

Happy Baking

De (aka thecakemum)

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