Mary Berry's Chocolate Sponge Cake

If you want a really good chocolate cake that is extremely easy to make, then look no further. The recipe is from the wonderful Mary Berry, who I have recently enjoyed watching in the very funny episodes of the Celebrity Bake off. 

Ingredients
Serves 8
50g cocoa powder
6 tbsp boiling water
3 free-range eggs
4 tbsp milk
175g self-raising flour
1 rounded tsp baking powder
100g baking spread or soft butter
300g natural caster sugar

For the icing and filling
150g dark chocolate, broken into small pieces
150ml double cream
3 tbsp apricot jam
icing sugar sugar, to dust

Alternative buttercream icing, which I used, 

125g of butter, melted with 4 tablespoons of water. Once melted, add 28g of cocoa powder and 280g of icing sugar. Beat until you have a smooth buttercream, add more icing sugar if it seems too runny. 

Method
Preheat the oven to 180C and grease and line two 20cm/8in sandwich tins with baking parchment.
Put the cocoa powder and boiling water into a large bowl and mix well to make a paste. Add the remaining ingredients and beat again until combined. This can also be done in a food processor, but take care not to over whisk. Divide the cake mixture between the prepared tins. Bake for about 25-30 minutes, or until well risen and shrinking away from the sides of the tin.

Meanwhile, for the icing and filling, measure the chocolate and cream together in a bowl and stand the bowl over a pan of simmering water for about 10 minutes, or until melted. Stir from time to time. Set aside and leave until cool and almost set.

Once baked, remove the cakes from the oven and allow to cool completely. Spread the tops of each cake with apricot jam. Fill the cakes with half of the icing and spread the remainder on top. Draw large “S” shapes over the cake with a palatte knife to give a swirl effect. Dust with icing sugar and serve in slices.

  

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