Chocolate Rose Cake

I've not been able to bake a lot over the past couple of weeks as I've been working away a lot. I've really been missing my kitchen, especially as it's National Baking Week, so a friends birthday party was a great excuse to get back!

She's a total chocoholic so I decided to make a marble cake with chocolate icing.

For the marble cake I made 10oz of batter in total, 6oz of chocolate and 6oz of vanilla and put white chocolate chunks in the vanilla and dark chocolate chunks in the chocolate. I also added a little soured cream to ensure the sponge was lovely and moist. I baked it in two 8" cake tins. I'm so pleased with my new Kitchen Aid and the texture of the batter really is better.





For the icing I made a basic butter cream and added plenty of melted dark chocolate and another spoonful of soured cream. I sandwiched about 4 tablespoons between the two layers and then smoothed a crumb layer over the whole cake (a thin layer of icing to keep any crumbs in) and then used the palette knife to put plenty of icing around the sides. For the top I used a star nozzle to pipe circles (as though I was topping a cupcake) to resemble roses. I did the ones around the outside first, using a small blob of icing to fill in the gaps and then finished with one in the centre. Finally I sprinkled a little gold glitter all over the top and pressed chocolate shavings all over the sides.

The cake looked especially lovely when the candles were lit as they made the glitter look even more sparkly!






Chocolate Rose Cake

For the cake:
8.5oz self raising flour (I always use supreme sponge flour)
1.5oz cocoa powder
10oz margarine or unsalted butter
10oz caster sugar (I always use unrefined golden caster sugar)
5 eggs
2tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla paste
2 tablespoons of soured cream
100g white chocolate chunks
100g dark chocolate chunks

For the icing:
250g unsalted butter
350g icing sugar
200g melted dark chocolate
1 tbsp of soured cream

1. Preheat the oven to 170C

2. Start by making the vanilla sponge (that way you don't need to wash the bowl in between mixtures).

3. Cream 4oz of butter with 4oz of caster sugar until very light and fluffy. Add 2 eggs and beat them in

4. Add 4oz flour, the vanilla paste, 1 tbsp of sourced cream and just under 1 tsp of baking powder. Fold in the white chocolate chips

5. Place one blob of mixture in the centre of each cake tin and then four blobs around leaving a gap between each for some chocolate mixture.

6. In the same bowl cream 6oz butter with 6oz caster sugar until fluffy. Add the 3 remaining eggs one at a time.

7. Add 4.5oz of flour, 1.5oz cocoa powder, just over 1 tsp baking powder and 1 tbsp of soured cream and mix well. Fold in the dark chocolate chunks

8. Blob the chocolate batter between the vanilla and smooth the top as much as you can without mixing the batters together too much

9. Bake for 35-45mins until a skewer comes out clean.

10. While the cake cooks make the icing. Start by beating the butter until smooth and the gradually add the icing sugar. Finally stir in the soured cream and slightly cooled melted chocolate.

11. Once totally cool ice the cake as detailed above.