16: Mary Berry's Chocolate Fudge Cake

Ingredients
50g sifted cocoa powder
6 tablespoons boiling water
3 large eggs
50ml milk
175g selfraising flour
1 rounded teaspoon baking powder
100g softened butter
275g caster sugar

Preheat the oven to 180. Grease the cake tins and line with non-stick baking parchment. Blend the cocoa and boiling water in a large bowl, then add the remaining cake ingredients and beat until the mixture has become a smooth, quite thick batter. Divide equally between the prepared tins and level the surface. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until well-risen and the top of the cakes spring back when lightly pressed with a finger. Leave to cool in the tins for a few minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and peel off the baking paper. Leave to finish cooling.

This recipe is a bastard to try. I added more selfraising flour after I didn’t get a thick batter when all the ingredients were added, and I wasn’t sure whether the sandwich tins I use for Victoria sponge were deep enough. The recipe book calls for 20cm deep tins! 8 inches! It is getting very poofy in the oven, but does it need to be that deep? I’m pretty sure this is going to become a failure; I’m gonna try the shortbread or the lemon creams again after this; really annoyed but the chocolate smell is delicious.

Icing & Filling
3 tablespoons apricot jam
150g plain chocolate
150ml pouring double cream

To make the icing, warm the apricot jam in a very small pan, then spread a little over the base of one cake and the top of the other. Break the chocolate into pieces and gently heat with the cream in a heatproof bowl set over a simmering bain-marie until the chocolate has melted. Remove the bowl from the heat and stir the mixture to make sure the chocolate has completely melted. Leave to cool until it is on the point of setting and then spread on top of the apricot jam on both cakes. Sandwich them together with one chocolate fudge on top of the cake and the other in the middle.