Chocolate cake

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons butter

• 2 level tablespoons of cocoa

• 1 cup SR flour

• 1 cup sugar

• ½ cup milk

• 2 eggs

• ½ teaspoon vanilla

Method:

Melt the butter. Put all other ingredients in a bowl and pour melted butter on top. Beat really hard for 3 minutes. Pour mixture into a ring cake tin (well-greased and flour-dusted) and bake in a moderate oven. If the oven is too hot, the cake will rise too quickly and boil over. “Be careful not to overcook and it will stay deliciously moist for days.” (Mum’s words!).

Mum never did say how to make the chocolate icing, precisely, but I remember her just dumping icing sugar in a bowl with a generous knob of butter. She would then trickle in hot water and beat the lot with a knife until the desired consistency was reached. She added more icing sugar or hot water or butter as was needed. The hot water will melt the butter, obviously, and then when it is on the cake, the butter will cool and make the icing go stiff. She used a knife dipped in hot water to spread it on the cake - top, sides, and inside the “funnel”. Just make sure the icing is not to moist or “sloppy” and nor too hard or “doughy”.

I always’ line the ring tin with a little butter and then greaseproof paper just to make sure the cake doesn’t stick. These days you can use a paper called Baking Paper and it’s really good.

The paper will allow fool-proof removal. Don’t use non-stick cook spray and so-called Non-Stick baking tins are utterly useless.