An Everyday Chocolate Cake

This is a really straightforward cake to make, a favourite with all the family.

You will need:

a round, deep cake tin (approximately 8″ – 9″ (20 – 22cm) in diameter), greased and lined with baking parchment

For the cake:

4 eggs, weighed in their shells

the weight of the eggs in:

25g of cocoa powder (if you prefer your cake a little darker, add an extra tablespoon of cocoa powder)

2 teaspoons of baking powder

4 tablespoons of milk

For the icing:

375g of icing sugar, sifted

25g of cocoa powder

200g of softened butter

a little warm water to make the icing a spreadable consistency

Method:

preheat the oven to 180°C
place all of the cake ingredients into a large mixing bowl and beat everything together until the mixture is smooth and creamy
place the cake mixture into the prepared cake tin and level the surface of the mixture

To check whether the cake is cooked you can try any of the following:

gently insert a skewer into the centre of the cake. When the skewer is pulled out, there should be no wet cake mix sticking to it
press the surface of the cake with your fingertips – the cake will spring back if it is cooked
lastly, look at the edges of the cake – when it is cooked it shrinks back a little from the sides of the tin

leave the cake in the baking tin on a cooling rack until it is almost cold
in the meantime, prepare the icing by placing all of the ingredients into a large bowl and then beat everything together until the mixture is smooth, creamy and well blended
split the cake in half horizontally then spread half of the icing onto the top and half onto the cut side of the bottom half
sandwich the two halves of the cake together