Gran’s Chocolate Cake

This is my take on Grannie Foley’s legendary chocolate cake. I like to think she would have approved…

Ingredients

• 260g self-raising flour
• 40g cocoa powder
• 250g caster sugar
• 250g soft margarine
• 1½ tsp baking powder
• 4 eggs
• 1 tbsp milk

For the icing

• 100g butter
• 200g icing sugar (sifted)
• 1 heaped tablespoon of cocoa

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 160°C
2. Mix the margarine and the sugar together until fluffy yet creamy
3. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder
4. Whisk the eggs and milk together
5. Gradually combine the three mixtures above together, mixing constantly (a food mixer is ideal)
6. Line a cake tin with buttered greaseproof paper and pour the mixture in
7. Bake in the centre of the oven for 50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean
8. Meanwhile, melt the butter for the icing in a bowl (20 seconds in the microwave usually does it)
9. Add the cocoa and mix until smooth
10. Add the cocoa/butter mix to the icing sugar and mix thoroughly with an electric whisk – it will eventually become quite dry and lumpy. It is at this point that you need to add water, but VERY little and very sparingly and mix until the icing has a smooth, thick, but spreadable consistency.
11. Take about a third of the icing mix and place in a separate bowl .To this, add a little more water but again, very carefully until it has the consistency of thick whipped cream
12. Cut the cake horizontally across the middle to make the top and bottom of a sandwich and spread the creamier third of the icing over the bottom half
13. Replace the top half and ice the entire cake with the thicker icing mix

Any leftover icing goes surprisingly well as a dip for fresh strawberries!