baking recipes

the best chocolate fudge cake recipe ever

This makes a cake which nicely moist, has a great soft texture and the icing is so lovely you'll want to eat it all before it gets anywhere near the cake.

for the cake you will need

175g butter
175g sugar
3 eggs
40g golden syrup
40g ground almonds
40g cocoa powder
175g flour

for the icing you will need

175g granulated sugar
175 ml milk
200g plain chocolate
75g butter
3 tablespoons cream
Vanilla essence

Put your oven on gas mark 4 / 180 degrees c / 350 degrees f.

Use a deep springform tin of about 22cm diameter, and grease and line it with baking paper before use.

Cream butter and sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy

Add the eggs gradually, beating well between each addition.

Stir in syrup and ground almonds

Sift together cocoa powder and flour and fold into the mixture

The mixture should have a reluctant dropping consistency. If it's a bit thick, add some water or milk to thin it a little.

Bake for 40 minutes - until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean, and the cake is coming away slightly from the edges of the tin

Whist your cake is in the oven, make the icing

Put the sugar and milk in a pan. Melt the sugar over a low heat, then allow it to simmer without stirring for 8 minutes

Take the pan off the heat and add the other ingredients, stirring until completely melted.

Put the icing in a bowl and allow it to chill for two hours until it's spreadable.

When the cake is cool, split it and sandwich it together using ¼ of the icing. Use the rest of the icing to cover the top and sides of the cake.

Adapted slightly from a recipe found in Leith's Book of Baking.