Special Chocolate Cake
Ladies a Plate

This recipe comes from my book:
Ladies a Plate

If you would like more recipes like it, you can buy the book at the bookshop

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Ingredients

For the Cake

  • 115 g butter
  • 200 g caster sugar *
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 225 ml milk
  • 180 g flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 3 tbsp cocoa
  • * Soft brown sugar makes a more tender cake. For a more intensely chocolate version increase the cocoa to 4 heaped tbsp, add 1 tbsp of golden syrup and replace 3 tbsp of the milk with rum.

For the chocolate butter icing

  • 115 g butter
  • 180 g icing sugar
  • 2 tbsp cocoa
  • 2 tbsp milk
  • ¼ tsp peppermint essence

For the Cake

  • 4 oz butter
  • 1 cup caster sugar *
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1½ cups flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 3 tbsp cocoa
  • * Soft brown sugar makes a more tender cake. For a more intensely chocolate version increase the cocoa to 4 heaped tbsp, add 1 tbsp of golden syrup and replace 3 tbsp of the milk with rum.

For the chocolate butter icing

  • 4 oz butter
  • 1½ cups icing sugar
  • 2 tbsp cocoa
  • 2 tbsp milk
  • ¼ tsp peppermint essence

Special Chocolate Cake

I began making this cake when I was about seven, using my mother's Kenwood Chef food mixer, and it was so successful that I speedily came to consider myself a chocolate-cake expert. It seems very small and simple compared with today's chocolate cakes, made with many eggs and much chocolate, but it is a good, economical and reliable recipe. My most persistent memory of making the cake is the delightful time I spent in decorating it. After spreading the top generously with peppermint-flavoured chocolate icing, I would mark the surface into a grid of curvy lines with a fork and place little silver balls at strategic intersections. These balls often had to be repositioned in order to be absolutely perfect, which meant removing them from the cake, licking off any icing stuck to them and replacing them in a more pleasing pattern. We all survived.

Getting ready

  1. Soften the butter and take the egg out of the fridge. Grease a 7 in/18 cm square tin with butter, and line the base with baking paper. Preheat the oven to 375°F/190°C.

Mixing and baking

  1. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy and beat in the egg.
  2. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk.
  3. Fold in the dry ingredients in about three lots, alternating with the soda and milk. It will be quite a soft batter. Cook for about an hour.
  4. The cake will shrink slightly away from the sides of the tin and when you press the centre gently with your finger, it will spring back.
  5. Remove from the oven, and cool on a rack. If the cake has a slightly peaked top, level it with a long serrated knife when it is cool and turn it over before you ice it.

Finishing

  1. Soften the butter, and cream it with the sifted icing sugar and cocoa, then add enough milk to make a soft, spreadable consistency. Add the peppermint essence if you wish.
  2. Cut the cake into two layers with a long serrated knife. Spread the lower layer with a thin layer of the peppermint icing. If you prefer plain chocolate icing, you could add a layer of raspberry or other red jam.
  3. Replace the top layer, spread with the remaining icing and leave plain or decorate as you wish.