2 weeks Ago By Angela Patrone
Mary Berry knows her stuff when it comes to the world of baking . After giving her favourite lemon cheesecake and Victoria sandwich cake a try I wanted to test out more of her dessert recipes . Claiming it to be the “easiest ever” chocolate cake recipe , I decided to see if it was as easy as it’s hyped up to be.
Mary’s easiest-ever chocolate cake recipe uses the all-in-one method and is simply filled with cream and jam. It’s perfect for those after a light and airy chocolate cake that’s not too rich. In total, this cake took me around five minutes to prep and needed 25 minutes in the oven.
What’s more, you only need eight ingredients for this whole cake, most of which I already had in the kitchen. Ingredients 225g unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for greasing 225g caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling Four eggs 220g self-raising flour One teaspoon of baking powder 50g cocoa powder Four tablespoons apricot jam 300ml whipping cream, softly whipped Method I started by measuring the ingredients and preheating the oven to 160C Fan before lightly buttering two eight-inch sandwich tins and lining the bases with baking paper. To get started on the cake all I had to do was add the butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder and cocoa to a large bowl and beat for two to three minutes until the mixture was blended.
To combine the ingredients, I used an electric stand mixer as Mary Berry has said that it’s best to use some sort of electric mixer, but you can also beat by hand using a wooden spoon. I then divided the mixture evenly between the two tins and levelled out the surface lightly using a spatula before pooing in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes. You’ll know when the cake is ready as the tops of them should spring back when pressed lightly with a finger.
I left the cakes to cool in the tins for five minutes before running a small palette knife around the edge of the tins. I turned the cakes out onto a wire cooling rack and peeled off the paper before leaving the sponges to cool completely. I then placed the bottom sponge top down on a serving plate and added the whipped cream and the jam to the other sponge before stacking them.
To finish off I dusted the top with a dusting of icing sugar instead of caster sugar. The cake tasted amazing and I was surprised that the apricot jam went so well with the chocolate sponge. While the recipe calls for 300ml of cream, you can definitely get away with using 150ml as I had a lot of cream left over.
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