Ooeey Gooey Chocolate Cake

People who know me well, know that my first culinary love is baking. For as long as I can remember it's been a huge part of my life; from helping my mum and nana to make homemade treats, to having my own business making celebration cakes. Whilst I no longer have the cake business, I still bake a lot, both in my day job, and at least once or twice a week at home for my family. 

I find the whole process very calming. Whether it's cakes, biscuits, traybakes or scones, I never get bored of baking. Most weeks I like to try a new recipe but there's one or two things in my repertoire that have become firm favourites and never get replaced. This is definitely the case for my chocolate cake recipe which I've been making for at least fifteen years. The original recipe was for a chocolate mud cake I found in the Essential Guide to Cake Decorating and over time I've added my own tweaks to perfect the chocolatey goodness. 

Obviously this week I'm stepping away from my usual mantra of experimental cooking with a straight up recipe. However, following this to the letter is of utmost importance. After all baking is science, and you can't mess around in science class. 

The ingredients are fairly simple and it's a very simple method. My only request is that you use good quality dark chocolate and proper vanilla extract. 

I've used two eight inch cake tins, I do have the measurements for a larger and a smaller version of this cake so please feel free to comment if you'd like to make a different size. 

For the cake

220g Butter

220g dark chocolate

160ml Water

125g Self raising flour 

125g Plain flour

0.5 tsp Bicarbonate of soda

50g Cocoa

480g caster sugar

4 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

110g sour cream

7 tsp vegetable oil

For the buttercream icing

250g salted butter

500g icing sugar

50g cocoa powder

1 tsp vanilla extract

1-2 tbsp of warm milk

1. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees celsius and like 2 x 8" tins with baking parchment. 

2.  Place the chocolate, butter and water into a pan and melt together over a low heat. 

3. Weigh the flours, bicarb, and cocoa powder together. Crack the eggs into a jug and add the oil, vanilla and sour cream. Weigh the sugar into a bowl. 

4. Once the chocolate mix has melted, pop to one side to cool for 10 minutes. 

5. Mix the sugar into the chocolate, then stir in the egg mixture and finally fold in the flour, cocoa and bicarb. You should have a smooth, glossy and quite liquid mixture. 

6. Pour half the mix into each of the lined tins and place into the middle of the oven. 

7. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until a skewer placed into the middle of the cake comes out  clean. Leave to cool in the tins for a few hours. 

8. To make the butter cream, soften the butter and mix in half of the seived icing sugar. (Preferably with an electric mixer but it is possible to make by hand with a large wooden spoon). 

9. Add the other half of the icing sugar and the rest of the ingredients and mix again. Keep mixing until the icing becomes lighter in colour and fluffy. 

10. Spread some buttercream on top of the first cake and place the second cake on top. Spread some more icing on top of the second cake and sprinkle liberally with grated chocolate. 

11. Cut a large slice and serve with a giant cup of tea. Yum! 

NB. You can always be more adventurous with your decoration if you have more time to spare.  Slice each cake in half and fill with chocolate ganache to create more layers. Coat the whole cake in white chocolate ganache and then top with a huge pile of chocolate......