A Spoonful of Sugar

I am proud to say that I pulled it off in the end. The birthday girl pronounced it to be "the best chocolate cake that she'd ever eaten!" and I thought it was quite good, too. Rich sponge, almost fudgy flavour to it, and very creamy--and gooey--chocolate icing.

The sponge is very easy to make. Dry ingredients in one bowl, wet in another, whisk together and bake. After baking the sponge I thought it was perhaps a little dry around the edges so decided to give it a good dousing in my homemade strawberry liqueur--yes, I still have some left--to perk it up. In actual fact, after sitting overnight wrapped in clingfilm the sponge was deliciously moist. I still went ahead with the liqueur though.

Onto the icing. I really wanted to make a chocolate buttercream so with my heart in my mouth I bought a tub of soya margarine and hoped beyond hope that it would work. It did. Sort of. Soya margarine seems to have a much higher water content than butter and thus the icing turned out quite liquidy. It didn't help that I was icing the cake on the hottest afternoon of the year (30C). If I make a soya version of this buttercream again, I would halve the margarine used initially and then add in more as needed to make the right consistency. It did firm up in the fridge but then melted rather a lot as we attempted to zoom across the city to the party. (Food safety freaks look away: we bunged it back in the fridge and it firmed up once more.) Oh, I should mention that I used dark chocolate which was guaranteed lactose/wheat/gluten free as it was made in a special factory. Not all dark chocolate is lactose-free so read labels carefully.

To continue the strawberry flavour I covered the base of the cake in sliced English strawberries which were incredibly juicy and fragrant. By the time we got around to eating the cake their flavour had started to penetrate the icing so the whole cake wound up tasting remarkably like chocolate-dipped strawberries.

Emily's Birthday Cake

Suitable for gluten, wheat and lactose intolerant diets.
N.B. I started off with a standard chocolate sponge recipe, took things away, added other things, and in the end wound up with my very own recipe.

275g Dove's Farm gluten-free--it's also wheat-free--flour (or similar product)
1 1/2 level tsp gluten-free baking powder (do double-check with the directions on your packet of flour to see how much baking powder you need to use to make self-raising flour--do not go by what it says on the tub of baking powder. It will vary depending on what brand of flour you use.)
1/2 level tsp salt
3 level tbsp cocoa powder
175g caster sugar
1 level tsp bicarbonate of soda
275ml soya milk
150ml vegetable oil (I used sunflower)
3 level tbsp golden syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract

60ml (or 4 tbsp) strawberry liqueur
punnet of strawberries, reserve some for the top (before anyone asks, I believe a punnet is about 300g these days)

175g dark chocolate (I used Freedom Chocolate)
250g soya margarine (bear in mind my note above)
275g icing sugar, sifted
1 tbsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 180C/Gas Mark 4. Grease--with soya margarine--and base line two 8" loose-bottomed round tins.

Sift flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cocoa into a large bowl and make a well in the centre.

Dissolve bicarbonate of soda in 1 tablespoon of the soya milk. Pour this into the well with the remaining ingredients--milk, oil, syrup, vanilla extract--and whisk well. A balloon whisk works best here.

Divide equally between the tins and bake for about 30 minutes until a cake tester comes out cleanly or the cake springs back when cooked. Turn out onto a wire rack, remove baking parchment, and cool.

If you have time, wrap the sponges in clingfilm and leave overnight.

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Unwrap cakes. Prick each with a skewer and sprinkle with the liqueur.

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Melt chocolate in the microwave. 2-3 mins on medium should do the trick. Set aside to cool for about five minutes--depending on the weather. You want it to be cool but not on the point of setting before adding it to the buttercream.

Cream margarine and icing sugar together. (I strongly advise starting off with half the quantity of margarine first to ensure you end up with the correct consistency.) Add vanilla extract and beat in carefully. When chocolate is cool enough scrape in every last drop of chocolate and beat well. Make sure to scrape down the sides very well so that your buttercream is not streaky.

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Slather a quarter--or up to a third--of the buttercream over the base of both of the sponge cakes. Make sure whatever plate you make it on is low enough to get the whole cake in the fridge. Slice enough strawberries to give you a thick layer of berries over the base of the cake then carefully upturn the other sponge on top.

Use the rest of the icing to ice the top and the sides of the cake. Arrange the reserved berries on top artistically. Chill in the fridge if necessary. (If you've used soya margarine then resign yourself to having gooey fingers as the icing will melt on contact with your fingers.)

No idea how many it serves! It all went within five minutes :)