Chocolate Cake Two Ways — golden tiffin

Happy new year everybody! I know that the trend right now would be to post some kind of detox smoothie that will rid your body of the thousand toxins we've consumed over the last month, but who am I kidding?! Start as you mean to go on, and I mean to go on with cake. Today's recipe is a remake of a gooey chocolate brownie post I did a while back. I used the same ingredients to make the cake and baked it for an extra 10 minutes for a more firm sponge. Clearly I had a lot of time on my hands over the holidays because I made the same cake twice, with two different frosting options. The first was a strawberry and raspberry filled sponge with chocolate ganache (similar to the brownies) and a really easy peanut butter frosting.

Servings: 5 slices per cake
Prep+cooking time: 40 minutes

Ingredients for the cake

150g unsalted butter
150g brown sugar
150g dark chocolate, chopped into chunks
100g self raising flour
2 tbsp good quality cocoa powder
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp salt
3 medium eggs

Instructions
1) For the sponge, grease two 10 inch spring form cake tins and preheat the oven to 160°C/310°f/Gas Mark 2/3.

2) Melt the chocolate and butter in a large bowl over a pan of simmering water.

3) Remove the chocolate mix from the heat. In a mixing bowl, pour the chocolate in with the flour, salt, cocoa powder, sugar and vanilla. Stir thoroughly.

4) Make a well in the centre and add in the eggs. Whisk until the ingredients are well mixed.

5) Pour the mixture into the baking tray and bake for 30 minutes. Be careful not to overbake or you'll end up with dry chocolate sponge cake! You want the centre to be moist.

6) Leave to cool for at least half an hour before slicing the sponge cakes otherwise the frosting will just slide off. Fill the sponge with your chosen fruits (I chose strawberries and raspberries for one of the cakes) and leave to one side.

Peanut Butter Frosting

4 tbsp smooth peanut butter
2 tbsp icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions
1) Sift icing sugar into a mixing bowl and stir in peanut butter. Add a teaspoon of vanilla extract and continue to mix until the frosting is smooth.

2) Crumb coat the cake using a knife and leave to harden for a few minutes before you add a second coat (although this part is optional, I tend to skip it.)