Fun, easy, chocolatey, party celebration cake

I found this recipe and it’s an easy customisable party or celebration cake.

This has become the staple birthday cake for our children, excepting the number cakes made by their Grandma.

The first thing to do is to pop the kettle on.  Cake making should always be accompanied with either a tea or a coffee.

When the kettle’s boiled, make your beverage of choice and also blend 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder with 3 tablespoons of water.

While you’re drinking your tea or coffee the cocoa and water can be cooling down.

This is an eight inch cake and can comfortably be cut into 12 generous pieces.

Ingredients

• 175g baking margarine

I find margarine choices confusing but this is good for baking cakes:

 

• 175g sugar, caster or granulated
• 175g self-raising flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3 eggs
• 2 tablespoons cocoa, blended with 2-3 tablespoons of hot water and cooled (see above)

Icing

• 110g unsalted butter
• 5-6 tablespoons milk
• 400g icing sugar
• 4 tablespoons cocoa powder
• Smarties, Matchmakers, chocolate buttons or Maltesers (or anything else that takes your fancy)

Method

• Make a tea or coffee as described above and mix the cocoa and hot water at the same time.
• Preheat the oven to 150 °C (fan oven).
• Grease and line two round 20cm / 8 inch cake tins.
• Place all the cake ingredients in a mixing bowl and beat until well mixed (2-3 minutes).
• Split the mixture between your prepared tins.
• Bake in the middle of the oven for 25-30 minutes.
• Turn out and cool on a wire tray.

For the icing:

• Place all icing ingredients together in a bowl and beat together until smooth.
• Sandwich cakes together with some of the icing and spread remaining icing over the cake including the sides
• Slathering icing is best done carefully with a palette knife
• Stick your chosen confectionery onto the icing.  Things that work well are Matchmakers vertically around the edge with Maltesers or Smarties on the top.