An Excellent Chocolate Cake

Always looking for a recipe to feed several people. Namely The Staff at St Andrews
I found this on a previous post 
I got this recipe from my daughter Katie
She found it in a Cook book called The Cake Bible
It is very moist and delicious.
At this time, I just served it as it, but I think it lends itself to being cut in half and filled with say some whipped cream, or you could do a layer of the icing
That also would be good

My friend Catherine gave me this great hint.
Warm your sugar before creaming. It makes life so much easier.
Try it…it works
So you need

Also as an addition, I added a cup of Craisins
I love their citrusy bite

125 gms softened butter
2/3 cup sugar warmed
½ cup icing sugar
2 eggs room temperature

1 ¼ cup SR flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ cup cocoa
Pinch salt
1 cup Craisins

1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Heat oven 180C
Grease and flour your tin.
I like to line the bottom with a circle of baking paper.


Cream butter and sugars
Add eggs one at a time
Beat well

Sift dry ingredients
Add Craisins to the dry ingredients
Mix milk and vanilla

Add dry ingredients milk mix alternately


Bake 40-50 minutes check after 35 minutes cake is ready when a skewer comes out clean
I found it took 40 minutes in my oven
Let cake sit on a rack for 10 minutes in the tin then turn out and cool.
It’s important that the cake is cold before you iced.

I was going to make a Ganache icing but I didn't have any cream, so I searched the net for
an icing made with Chocolate Chips and Icing Sugar
I found this one on Food Network.com and it worked
Doesn't have the fabulous dark colour of a Ganache but tasted good
This is Courtesy of Giada De Laurentiis

Ingredients

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
3 cups icing sugar
1/4 cup whole milk, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions

In a medium bowl, using an electric hand mixer, 

beat the butter until light and smooth. 

Beat in the icing sugar, milk and vanilla until smooth and creamy.

Place the chocolate chips in a small bowl and place over a small pan of barely simmering water. 

Heat, stirring occasionally, until the chocolate is melted and smooth, about 2 minutes. 

Remove the pan from the heat. 

Add the melted chocolate to the vanilla frosting and stir until smooth.

Ice your cake

When I originally made this cake I frosted it with a raspberry frosting and filled it with berries 

It looked beautiful, so if you would like to see that

Click here

I see there is an interesting Savoury Tea cake on that same post. Nice to serve with drinks