BIRTHDAY CHOCOLATE CAKE

It was the birthday of my youngest this week and we celebrated with a chocolate cake (after one of those 'crazy-mum moments' when you find yourself baking a cake at 23.30 and icing it at 6.30 the following morning). I took the recipe from the BBC website (which is still running, despite all the political hysteria against the BBC earlier this year).

You need:
- 225 plain flour
- 350 sugar
- 2 eggs
- 85 g cocoa powder (I did not have any so ended up using drinking chocolate powder and it worked very well)
- 2 tablespoons vanilla essence
- 1.5 teaspoons baking soda
- 1.5 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
- 250 ml milk
- 125 ml sunflower oil
- 250 ml boiling water

For the icing I changed a bit the recipe and used 300 ml double cream and 230 ml dark chocolate.

Preheat the oven at 180 degrees. Grease and line 2 round cake tins. Mix all the ingredients except for the boiling water with a wooden spoon. Add the boiling water in little bits and mix well (the mixture is very liquid but don't worry). Divide the mixture between the two tins and bake for 35 minutes. Once they are baked wait until they are completely cold and take them off the tin.

heat the cream and dark chocolate (cut into pieces). Once the chocolate has melted let the mixture get cold for around an hour. Ice the cake (the first layer, top and sides)

It was far too late at night for the children to help - but they loved the cake.