Chocolate Cake

I’ve been in tray-bake mood for the past few weeks, so I used the square tin and made a chocolate one, covered it with Icing and chocolate shavings. It’s quite exquisite to eat and incredibly soft. I think the reason for this is because I sifted the flour twice and cooked the cake on a lower temperature than normal. However, this may not be the reason and it could just be a guess, in which case it was probably a fluke, but you can try it anyway and see if you get the same results. My boys love this.

Ingredients for Sponge: 6 oz Self Raising Flour, 5 oz granulated sugar, 1 and a half tsp baking powder, 2 tbls cocoa powder. 5 floz vegetable oil, 5 floz milk, 2 eggs.

Ingredients for Icing & Topping: 4 oz Icing sugar, 1 tbls cocoa powder, 1 or 2 tbls water, 2 or 3 cubes of chocolate for shavings.

Method:

Preheat oven to 160 c, gas mark 3. Place all the dry sponge ingredients into a mixing bowl. Add the oil, milk and beaten eggs. Beat together to thoroughly mix. Grease a square or rectangular baking tin. You can line it with baking paper, but you don’t need to. Pour the cake mixture into the tin and place onto the middle oven shelf and cook for 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, make your Icing. Put the icing sugar and cocoa powder into a bowl and add the water. Mix until it reaches a dropping consistency, but not runny. You may need to add a little more water. Put this into the fridge.

I generally find that once you can smell the cake cooking it’s about ready. Take it out and pierce the centre with a knife; if it comes out clean the cake is cooked. If not, give it a few more minutes. Take out the cake and place it onto a wire rack and leave to cool in the tin. I don’t like to take the cake out to cool because the icing needs to go on. I generally serve the cake straight from the tin. Spread the icing onto the cooled cake and sprinkle with chocolate shavings or whatever you fancy. Chocolate buttons or smarties are nice too.

Bon appetit!