Chocolate Cake

In my view, you don’t need a reason to celebrate to enjoy chocolate cake.  But if you are looking for a great dessert cake or a “grown up” birthday cake, look no further.  This recipe uses coffee to create a very dark and moist cake.  The finished cake doesn’t taste of coffee though so don’t be put off if you don’t like the taste of coffee or you are giving it to children.  I use decaf as my children will devour most of the cake and that’s what I usually drink. Another great thing about this recipe is that the batter can be used to make terrific cup cakes. I have set out ingredients and a method for a dark chocolate buttercream but you could use any chocolate icing on the finished cake.

1. Preheat the oven to 180˚C or 170˚C Fan and line a 20cm (8″) cake tin with baking paper (or if making cup cakes, put cup cake cases into the cup cake tin). (Click here for a step by step guide to lining a cake tin).
   
2. Put all of the ingredients into a bowl and beat for three minutes.  The mixture should be completely combined.  Scrape down the edges and give it a further few seconds of beating. The mixture will be quite runny.
   
3. Pour the batter into the cake tin or cup cake cases, using a spatula to get all of the batter out of the bowl.
   
4. Cook in the centre of the oven for 1 hour.  The cake is cooked if a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the centre of the cake.  I.e. there shouldn’t be any raw batter on the skewer.  If it isn’t quite done after an hour, put it back in the oven for a further 10 minutes and check again.
   
   
   
5. Cool on a wire rack and ice with chocolate icing when completely cold.
   

To Ice

1. First melt your chocolate.   Either put it in a bowl and place it over a pot of simmering water (make sure that the water does not touch the base of the bowl and don’t get any water into the bowl – water is the enemy of chocolate and the chocolate will seize if it comes into contact with it) or melt it slowly in a microwave on low, checking after every 20 seconds or so. Then let the melted chocolate cool.
       
2. Beat the softened butter with electric beaters.
   
3. Add the milk and cooled melted chocolate and beat to combine.  Then add the icing sugar gradually, about a third at a time, beating after each addition.  You may not need all of the icing – it depends how thick you want it – but this will give enough to cover the top and sides of the cake and, if you wanted (though I find it too sweet) a layer of icing through the centre of the cake.
4. To ice the cake, level the top of the cake by slicing off any domed top with a bread knife.
   
5. Turn the cake upside down onto a plate or cake stand and remove the base of the cake tin if you were using a loose bottomed or springform tin.
       
6. Put half the icing on top of the cake and smooth over the top and sides, adding more icing if you think it is needed.  Concentrate on covering the cake and then once you have a layer of icing over the entire cake, spend time either smoothing the icing so it is completely smooth and level, or creating a slightly “rougher” looking finish as I have done in the pictures.
   
   
7. Then add any decorations on candles.