- Makes a double-layered 7 inch / 18cm cake - Ready in 1.5 hours (including cooling time) -
This recipe makes a humble-looking but really delicious chocolate cake. It is moist and has a great depth of colour and flavour, despite relying 'only' on cocoa powder (it does have plenty of cocoa powder in it mind you!) Thank you Mum for spotting this recipe years ago and for baking it for every birthday ever since.
Gather together…
170g butter (quite thinly sliced and warmed for 3 minutes in the heating-up oven until soft, but not fully melted).
170g white sugar (caster sugar or granulated sugar both work), sieved to remove lumps.
140g SR flour, sieved to incorporate air.
2 tsp baking powder, sieved to avoid unpleasant-tasting lumps.
85g cocoa powder, sieved.
3 tbsp hot water (not quite boiling - from a cooling kettle or from the hot tap is fine).
4 medium eggs (or 3 large eggs), beaten slightly.
Decorate with...
3 tbsp (45g) strawberry jam / raspberry jam / lemon curd - as preferred.
200g milk chocolate - 'cooking chocolate' melts far more easily than regular chocolate and is much less likely to shock and split. Sainsbury's own-brand cooking chocolate is sold in foil and card (so is plastic-free), Green & Black's cooking chocolate is plastic-free AND palm oil-free, but is too pricey for me to use regularly.
** You could melt any lingering Christmas chocolate or Easter chocolate to use as a topping - this novelty chocolate won't be easy-to-melt cooking chocolate so the finish won't be smooth, it would be best to add chopped nuts, sprinkles or shards of broken-up chocolate to embrace the inevitably lumpy (yet yummy) finish**
Additions of your choice, e.g. Smarties, or piped buttercream icing words (1 quantity of soft butter, to 2 quantities of sieved icing sugar, plus food colouring paste).
Get cooking…
1. Preheat the oven to 170 C (150 C fan) or Gas 3.
2. Now warm the 170g of sliced butter in the heating-up oven for 3 minutes (set a timer so you don’t forget it!) - use a small, robust ceramic or metal bowl, and be careful when removing the hot bowl.Some of the butter will actually melt (which isn't a disaster), most will still be solid yet soft.
3. Meanwhile, butter-grease and base-line with baking paper (and then re-grease) two circular 18cm (7 inch) diameter baking tins. Or better still, use re-usable cake tin liners (cut-to-size liners are available from Lakeland).
4. In a medium / large mixing bowl, cream together the 170g of very softened butter and the 170g of (sieved) white sugar for about a minute. Mix until the mixture is very fluffy and soft - you can do this mixing by hand or with an electric mixer (but the later stages of this recipe, once the flour is added, work best if hand mixed with a spoon, as the cake dislikes being over-mixed).
5. Sieve in the 140g of SR flour and sieve in the 2 tsp of baking powder. Don't mix yet.
6. Sieve in the 85g of cocoa powder. Stir slightly to just start to mix the dry ingredients with a spoon, don't yet mix down to the bottom of the bowl where the buttery-sugar is though.
7. Add the 3 tbsp of hot (not boiling) water. Don't stir any more yet (we are trying to avoid over-mixing the flour).
8. In a jug, beat the 4 medium eggs for 30 seconds with a fork, until the whites and yolks are well mixed.
9. Add the beaten eggs to the other ingredients in the bowl.
10. Mix the cake batter, by hand with a spoon, until just combined (this will take about 1 minute by hand using a metal spoon), over-mixing will make the cake chewy and tough!
11. This cake batter is quite a stiff consistency, it probably won't drop off a spoon in under 5 seconds (my usual test). This is fine. If it worries you, stir in up to 2 tbsp more of hot water - the cakes may take a little longer to cook if you do this.
12. Using digital scales (if available) weigh approximately 380g of mixture into each (greased and lined 18cm tin), or divide the mixture by eye.
13.Gently spread and level the mixture, to ensure it covers the whole tin (as it is a stiff, dry-ish mixture and struggles to spread out by itself).
14. Bake the tins for 20 - 25 minutes on the MIDDLE shelf. DO NOT OPEN DOOR to check on them until AFTER 20 minutes of baking time.
15. Once the cakes feel springy when poked and when you see that the edges have shrunk slightly in away from the tin, test the cakes with a skewer - the skewer will come out clean from the middle once they are cooked.
16. Remove the cakes from oven and let them cool in their tins for 5 minutes. Cover the tins with a clean tea towel to keep insects away.
17. Turn out each cake onto a wire rack to cool for 30 minutes, under a tea towel.
18. Once the cakes are fairly cool (they don't need to be fully cooled as the chocolate doesn't mind sitting on a slightly warm cake), make sure the cakes are both dome-side up. So the very base of the cake is a flat surface and so that the top is a slight dome.
19. Mix the 3 tbsp of jam (or lemon curd) in a small bowl, to give a smooth consistency and then sandwich the cakes together, ensuring you spread right to the edges as a bit of visible filling makes the cake look even more delicious.
20. Gently melt the 200g of milk-chocolate cooking-chocolate in a bain-marie (a pan over boiling water) or in the microwave (using short bursts on HIGH).
21. Spread the chocolate over the cake, do this carefully right up to the edge, as controlled chocolate drips is the look we are aiming for. Let the chocolate cool slightly for a few minutes before adding any further decoration (so the decorations don't sink / slide off!) If you are piping a buttercream message onto the cake, then obviously let the chocolate solidify fully before you begin writing.
22. Once the chocolate has set, keep the cake in an airtight container in a cool room and eat it up within 5 days (if you've decorated it with buttercream icing, then keep it refrigerated and eat within 3 days). Enjoy!
Adapted from a recipe in Florence Greenberg's 'Jewish Cookbook'.