A Chocoholic's Chocolate Cake

This rather unassuming looking cake was made at the beginning of the week for one of my work friend's birthday's (he has more of a sweet tooth than even me, shocking I know).  I was surprised at the reaction it got ... people I have never even met before were coming up to me all day to tell me how fantastic this cake tasted and even the non-chocoholics wanted seconds!  Being packed full of chocolate in both the cake and icing it was a hard task to decline the offer of a slice I can tell you.  The recipe is actually featured on the front cover of this month's Olive Magazine and called for 2 x 18cm cake pans to make the sponges.  The smallest pans I have are 20cm so I adapted the recipe to suit and made it into a sandwich cake rather than a 4 layer chocolate masterpiece!

A Chocoholics Chocolate Cake
175g SR flour, sifted
3 tbsp 70% cocoa powder
1 tsp instant coffee powder (optional)
175g butter, completely softened, plus extra for lining the tin
175g golden caster sugar
1 tsp baking powder
3 eggs
1-2 tbsp milk
100g 70% dark chocolate, melted and cooled
Icing
500ml double cream
500g milk chocolate, chopped

Make the icing first (it takes a while to cool and thicken).  Put the chocolate into a bowl.  Pour the cream into a pan and heat until simmering.  Take off the heat and pour it over the chocolate.  Stir until the mixture is smooth.  Cool, then chill, until really thick but spreadable.

Heat the oven to 180C/fan 160C.  Butter and base line 2 x 20cm sandwich tins with baking parchment.  Take 3 tbsp flour from the full flour amount and put them back in the flour bag - the cocoa powder will make up the difference.

Put all the cake ingredients except the chocolate in a large bowl.  Beat them together with an electric whisk (or whizz in a food processor) until you have a creamy mixture, then fold in the melted chocolate.  Add a little more milk if the mix is too stiff - it should fall easily from a spoon.

Divide the mixture between the 2 tins and level.  Bake on the same shelf in the oven for 20-25 mins or until the sponge springs back when pressed.  Cool for 5 mins, turn out onto a wire rack, peel off the paper and cool completely.

Sandwich the layers together with a little icing, then spread the rest on top thickly.

Serves 10
Adapted from Olive Magazine, April 11

If I have one complaint it is that the icing didn't firm up as much as I would have liked.  Everyone who ate the cake felt it was the perfect consistency but I would have liked it to be a wee more truffle like in consistency.  Not sure if I should try adding butter (as in a proper chocolate truffle recipe) or if the mixture just needs a really good whisking before popping it in the fridge.  Watch this space for trial and error updates!