Sunday 29 July 2012

Famous Faces’ Favourite Fancies – Olympian chocolate cake




You may have noticed that the Olympics have started...if you live anywhere near London (as I do) your local news has featured at least one Olympic themed story every day for seven years and there has been much unrest over how London will work (and get to work) during the Olympics.  Personally, I love the Olympics, but enduring the protracted build up has rather threatened to take the shine off it all.  I’m hoping that, now it’s actually started, my love will return... I’m sure that an hour or two spent enjoying the mens’ rowing will be just what the doctor ordered!




One of our great medal hopes (and certainly one of the most popular) is the diver Tom Daley. It is hard to believe he is only 18 years old as he seems to have been around forever!  What I admire about Tom, apart from his immense talent and dedication to his sport, is the aplomb with which he conducts himself – he always comes across so well in interviews, and seems to enjoy himself.  I think so many modern sports people often look like they forget they’re meant to enjoy it.




I heartily approve of Tom’s choice of chocolate cake and I went all out to make this as chocolatey as possible; the recipe is basically a Victoria sponge but chocolated up at every opportunity! (NB.  I suspect that “chocolatey” and “chocolated up” are not proper words, and if they are, they aren’t very pretty.   But they just seem right somehow!)




The addition of melted chocolate into the buttercream made it a firmer, more moussey texture than normal and it had a deep chocolate flavour.  It kept well too.  Whenever I comment that a cake keeps well I hope it conveys to you the magnitude of the cake.  I think mountaineers could scale the north face of this one!




Best of luck Tom – the country is behind you!  Win us the gold!





Ingredients

For the cake:
225g unsalted butter, at room temperature
200g golden caster sugar
4 eggs
200g self raising flour
50g cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
100ml milk

For the filling:
100g milk chocolate, melted
125g unsalted butter, at room temperature
25g cocoa powder
75g icing sugar



Method

Preheat the oven to 190°C/fan oven 170°C/375°F/Gas mark 5.

Line two 20cm round loose bottomed sandwich tins with baking paper.

In a large bowl beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy – don’t skimp on this stage as this is where the air is added.  Your mixture should look like over-whipped cream before you stop.

Beat in the eggs one at a time.  If the mixture looks like it might curdle add some of the flour.
Fold in the flour, cocoa and baking powder.

Fold in the milk.

Spoon into the two prepared tins, as evenly as possible (I do it by eye but you can weigh it if you wish to be more precise) and level the surfaces.

Bake for 25-35 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cakes comes out clean.

Leave to cool in the tins until you can safely de-tin; then leave to cool completely on a wire rack.

You can keep the sponges in an airtight container for a day or two before building the finished cake.

Now make the filling: Let the melted chocolate cool a little, but not so much it sets again.  I like to melt small quantities of chocolate like this in a microwave, giving short 20 second bursts – but a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water works just as well.

Whisk the butter, on its own, until it is white and fluffy – looking like whipped cream almost.

Add the cocoa, icing sugar and melted chocolate and whisk until well combined and the mixture resembles a thick mousse.

Place one of the sponges, flat side up, on the serving plate and spread half the filling over it.

Place the other sponge, flat side down, on top and press gently to make a good seal.

Spread the remaining filling on top and spread over.

Decorate as required.

Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.

Eat.





25 comments:

Caroline said...

Oh yum. I love chocolate cake too. I wish I had a slice of this one right now to tuck into. I think chocolated-up is a legitimate phrase. As always, I'm very impresssed by the magnificence of your cake - tall and upstanding.

Victory Rolls & Mixing Bowls said...

Definitely a real phrase, gorgeous cake - as always!

Nom!

Ps....now I want chocolate

Lucy said...

This chocolate cake looks so impressive - perfect to restore all those lost calories for Olympians, as well as for cheering them on from the sofa!

Perdita Tinsel said...

That's a gold-medal cake alright. Nom.

trash said...

Perhaps he will put even more effort into his dives if you offer to make and send him one of these?

Alfie said...

This is such a beautiful cake to mark the Olympics! I'm trying to drag my eyes away from how deliciously deep those cake layers are....yum!!

Sarah-Jane - SiliconeMoulds.com said...

Saw tom on telly a while ago. Guts kid. Hope he does well !

Cracking chocolate cake X

Maggie said...

I wonder if we can persuade Tom to dive into your cake?!

Hettie said...

I am behind you in your wishes for Tom and all our Team GB! Now. Can I have a slice of cake now please?

Gloria Baker said...

I adore your chocolate cake!

Spencer said...

What an awesome creation! Almost too good to eat.

Cakelaw said...

What a lovely cake! I especially like the medal decoration.

Cakefairyblog said...

I seriously have olympic fever! and that is an olympic sized caked! I just bought that cake topper too and looking forward to using it now. Tom is on at 3pm today!! eek

Unknown said...

a perfect chocolate cake. looks perfect in texture. Yum!

Laura loves cakes said...

Great cake...although I'm thinking Tom Daley can't eat too much with a body like that!! I love all the toppers, perfect for the Olympics!! :-)

LandGirl1980 said...

*dribble*

Kit @ i-lostinausten said...

YUM! Love this chocolate cake , perfectly presented with Olympic spirits! Yeah! :)

Jo said...

What a gloriously deep cake, I think Tom could nearly dive off it! Was gutted for poor Tom yesterday, your cake would definitely cheer him up.

I was also getting so sick of all the Olympics talk but as soon as it actually started I was hooked. Spent yesterday completely stuck to the tv cheering on team GB in the male team gymnastics. Amazing!

Mikey said...

This cake turned out perfectly, one of the squidgyest recipes yet! Forks were required to handle the extreme squidgyness : )

The Caked Crusader said...

Hi Unknown

Glad you enjoyed it. We employed forks too!

Happy baking

Ronja said...

Wow, this huge chocolate cake looks delish, you should win a medal for this!!!

Marcel said...

Awesome cake! I am going to try that one out!

Jacqueline Meldrum said...

I am having palpatations looking at the picture and it's not the chocolate cake, although that is making me drool too.

Fabulous cake and love the tip about the buttercream.

Oh and I linked to you on Baby Centre.

Anonymous said...

I loove the Olympics too! Woohoo for all who are supporting their country in the games:)
This is one god gold medal chocolate cake:D
-SimplyBakes

morri said...

I made it yesterday, with some modifications. Instead of making two cakes (I only have one 8-inch sandwich tin), I halved the ingredients list, made just one cake - and then cut it in half. Instead of the buttercream from the recipe, I used the chocolate fudge cream left over from the Domo cake, and it worked great!

The cake is incredibly light and moussey, making it a perfect companion the chocolate cream. One thing that prevented me from fully enjoying it was... well, the amount of baking powder that goes into it. I know, I know, that's part of the secret behind its fluffy texture. It's just that I'm very sensitive to baking powder, and I could feel it burn the back of my throat when I ate the cake. That's why I decided not to give any of it to my Mum - she's even worse than me in that regard! So, if you're sensitive to baking powder, you should proceed with caution (maybe the amount can be decreased? I'm not sure). But if you don't mind baking powder, go ahead and make this - you'll be in chocolate heaven!