Chocolate cake

Chocolate cake

A reliably good buttercream sandwiched between two layers of gratifyingly chocolatey sponge makes this close to the perfect cake

Difficulty and servings

Moderately easy

Serves 12

Preparation and cooking times

Total time

Ready in 1 hr 30 mins, plus cooling

Method

  1. Heat the oven to 160C/fan 140C/gas 3. Line a 20cm x 20cm square cake tin.
  2. Mix the flour, sugar and cocoa together in a bowl. Melt the chocolate and butter together with 200ml water in a pan and then beat this along with the eggs into the dry mixture. Pour into the cake tin and bake for 1 hour or until a skewer comes out clean. It may crack a little on top but this will be covered by the icing. Cool.
  3. To make the icing, melt the chocolate with the cream and butter until smooth and then cool to a spreadable consistency, beat in enough icing sugar to make the icing opaque and stiff.
  4. Slice the cake horizontally into 2 or 3 layers and spread some icing between each layer. Ice the outside of the cake in a thick even layer and smooth the icing down as much as possible, don't worry about the top too much.
  5. Dust with cocoa powder just before serving.
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731 kcalories, protein 8.1g, carbohydrate 83.5g, fat 42.8 g, saturated fat 24.7g, fibre 2.6g, salt 0.68 g

Recipe from olive magazine, September 2007.

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Latest comments and suggestions

Results 61-80

  • 19 December 2008

    Raffie rated and commented on this recipe

    3 stars

    My cake ended up very dense. I also had a problem with the icing being very runny. My cake just ended up with the icing pooled around the edge like a chocolate mote! It didn't look very attractive but it still tasted good!

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  • 29 December 2008

    Sarah commented on this recipe

    Brilliant cake, will be keeping this one on standby. I made it in between cooking a chilli con carne, washing a loads of dishes and putting a load on... its non complicated and failure free. My tip is never use expensive chocolate, your cake will taste too bitter not to mention the cost involved. Sainsbury or Waitrose have really good home brands.

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  • 29 January 2009

    ejholt commented on this recipe

    great easy receipe my little one helped she loved it made it for her grandads 60th went down gr8! brownie points 4 me!!lol although made far too much icing will half quantitys nxt time xx

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  • 29 January 2009

    ejholt rated this recipe

    5 stars

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  • 29 January 2009

    Agent Orange rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    Made this for McMillan Coffee Morning at work and went down a storm. I think i proved i am a domestic goddess (well sort of!). It looked like it was from a shop and was really easy to make. A bit long winded as you have to wait for the cake to cook and slice it in half and wait for it to cool. I ended up making the ising for it at 7.00am before going to work. It tasted really rich and luxurious. My friend at work says he still has creams about it and veryone had demanded another one....Maybe for Comic Relief!

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  • 25 February 2009

    hi desiree commented on this recipe

    I Baked this cake last night for my husbands birthday, mine also had all the cracks at the top, and when I took it out of the tin, the bottom had 4 massive holes as well? what went wrong here? could someone please advise? I'd like to try again.

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  • 04 March 2009

    africanangel commented on this recipe

    its clear simple and tastes FAD!!!!!!!!!!

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  • 06 March 2009

    berol rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    This is a fantastic chocolate cake. Easy to make too!

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  • 08 March 2009

    rosie rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    im glad to read im not the only one who messed up with the icing, however this cake was a winner, my icing was a little to runny but i used it and as my sponge was quite big it soaked into the sponge and then i wrapped in foil and left for a day, by this time the icing was firmer and the cake really moist and it went along way improving each day.

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  • 14 March 2009

    kate rated and commented on this recipe

    4 stars

    The recipe was very easy to make but took forever to cook.Still a nice chocolate cake,will make again.

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  • 17 March 2009

    SYLVIA commented on this recipe

    An absolute disaster, there is no way this cooks in one hour, the icing is hopeless and runs all over the place. I think there is too much ceam. It tastes fabulous but the point is you also want it to look good. Mine dosn't and looks a mess. Won't make it again.

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  • 30 March 2009

    bonstaa commented on this recipe

    HELP!IM MAKING THIS CAKE AND IT SAYS UNREFINED SOFT BROWN SUGAR, BUT U CANT GET UNREFINED SUGAR THAT IT IS SOFT PLEASE COULD U TELL ME WT U HAVE USED THANKYOU SO MUCH

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  • 27 April 2009

    Dana W commented on this recipe

    I used about a couple of tablespoons less water as it seemd very runny and I had used large eggs. Although it tool an extra 30 mins to cook it turned out perfectly. I haven't tasted it yet!

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  • 30 April 2009

    jools rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    Yes, the 200ml of water does goes with the chocolate and the butter. I thought it was a little odd to do this but there you go. The cake is delicious!

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  • 09 May 2009

    SamanthaH rated and commented on this recipe

    4 stars

    Rich velvety chocolatey goodness! This recipe did not get a 5 out of 5 because it was so unclear as to whether or not the water goes IN the chocolate and butter mix (it does) or not, seriously we had a debate about it (or maybe you need to live in an English-speaking country to get it). And after that, the batter was a messy messy gooey nearly a workout to beat, even with an electric mixer kind of goop. I've made the buttercream for this cake many many times (great recipe and I'm a buttercream junkie). I love it though and I will totally make it again.

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  • 27 May 2009

    denise commented on this recipe

    Havent made the cake yet but i am a bit confused with regard to the instructions. Melt the choclate and butter together with 200ml water in a pan. Surely it should read melt them both above a pan with 200ml of water in it like shown in the video clip otherwise it will be very runny. well i am going to make it without adding the water and get back to you.

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  • Binder photo Al

    06 June 2009

    Al commented on this recipe

    The cake turned out great but I am not sure that the recipe for the icing is correct. I followed it exactly but the icing was very runny. I let it cool for about an hour before adding the icing sugar and it wasnt a particulary warm day or kitchen. I then kept adding more and more icing sugar and placed the mix into a fridge until it was somewhere near. After I had filled and covered the cake there was still about half of the mix left. I re checked the amounts and I definately used the correct amounts. Any suggestions.

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  • 13 July 2009

    alexandramw commented on this recipe

    Made this for my son's birthday. He wanted a thomas the tank engine cake and so I needed a very strudy cake recipe to make it easy to assemble the thomas and easy to ice....it was BRILLIANT! I am no baker, but this was SOOO straight forward, I doubled the recipe, laughed to myself when melting half a kilo of chocolate but it is a DIVINE cake. Really solid and the texture is like velvet its delicious everybody was very impressed!

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  • 13 July 2009

    alexandramw rated this recipe

    5 stars

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  • 27 July 2009

    Rhiannon rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    AWESOME!!! This cake is so easy to make and tastes gorgeous! My partner even chose a slice of this cake over a muffin (he's a muffin fiend, so that is a BIG compliment to my cake!!!!)

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Difficulty and servings

Moderately easy

Serves 12

Preparation and cooking times

Total time

Ready in 1 hr 30 mins, plus cooling

Ingredients

  • 250g self-raising flour
  • 250g unrefined soft brown sugar
  • 50g cocoa
  • 250g plain chocolate
  • 250g butter
  • 4 eggs

ICING

  • 400g plain or milk chocolate
  • 284ml pot single cream
  • 25g butter
  • 100-200g icing sugar
  • cocoa powder for dusting
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731 kcalories, protein 8.1g, carbohydrate 83.5g, fat 42.8 g, saturated fat 24.7g, fibre 2.6g, salt 0.68 g

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