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.