RICH CHOCOLATE CAKE

 

 The past week I have been really ill so haven't been able to get in the kitchen, however today I managed to get up and make a cake (my illness wasn't contagious so no germs in the cake!) On the 6th December is my best friends 21st birthday so I need to make her a very special cake. She wants to tiers which requires one large cake on the bottom and a smaller one on top. No I have never made a large cake before so to get all my calculations right and make sure it works I decided to do a practice today, and this was the final result. A moist chocolate cake 10" cake! Divine! Perfect if you are planning on making a large wedding or birthday cake.

Takes 1 hour and 10 minutes to bake

Makes one large 10"" cake

INGREDIENTS

750g Casting sugar 

375g Plain flour

85g plain chocolate

300m hot coffee

1 1/2 cups cocoa powder

2tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp baking powder

1 1/4 tsp salt

3 eggs

3/4 cup of vegetable oil

1 1/2 cup buttermilk 

3/4 tsp vanilla essence

METHOD

1. Preheat your oven to gas mark 2 (300F/150C). Make sure your eggs are at room temperature.

 2. In a bowl mix together your hot coffee and chocolate until the chocolate melts.

 3. In a separate bowl mix together your dry ingredients and put to the side.

 4. Whisk your eggs until they thicken and go a pale yellow.

 5. Then add the remaining wet ingredients to this mixture and mix through.

 6. Then add your wet ingredients to your dry ingredients and mix together until lovely and smooth.

 7. Line a two 10" tins with baking paper and the sides with butter. Add half your mixture to each tin and bake in the middle of your oven for 1 hour, before this DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR! It will sink. If after an hour it still isn't done then just put it back in until a skewer comes out clean.

 8. It should be lovely and brown, it should also have come away from the sides. Remove from your tins and place to cool. While cooling move onto your icing. 

ICING

 INGREDIENTS 

230g unsalted butter

2 tsp vanilla extract

food colouring

milk if needed

500g icing sugar

 1. Sift your icing sugar into a bowl with your butter and mix until smooth. Add your vanilla and food colouring, if the mixture is still to thick to spread ad a tbsp of milk a time until it is your desired consistency.

 2. Place some of your icing on the top of one of your cakes and then place the other cake on top of it.

3. Place the remaining icing on the top of your cake and decorate as desired, I used some fondant to make some flowers. It is such a wonderful cake and feeds up to 15 people as it is so huge! Enjoy.