When you have a little time on your hands, there is nothing nicer than to be in a kitchen surrounded by eggs, flour, sugar and butter: four ingredients that with a little mixing produce a glorious, sweet-smelling piece of joy.
I decided to write about cakes this week as it is my youngest daughter's birthday – I promised to make her one she could take to school. Both these chocolate and blood-orange cakes have three layers – sponges look nice when piled high; for the coconut cake, the third sponge decorates the top.
On another note, we are into Fairtrade Fortnight and I've donated a cake to the cause of the Big Swap, trying to encourage residents to swap to Fairtrade ingredients. Please give it a try where you are too.
Chocolate cake
550g/19oz self-raising flour
550g/19oz caster sugar
550g/19oz very soft butter
4 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla extract
10 eggs
4 tbsp milk
4 tbsp dark cocoa powder and a little boiling water
For the icing
500g/1lb cream cheese at room temperature
200g/7oz icing sugar
Heat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas6. Mix the first seven ingredients together in a food processor; you may have to do this in two batches. Put the cocoa powder into a bowl and add enough boiling water to make a loose paste. Stir this into the cake mix.
Butter and flour three 20cm spring-form cake tins and divide the cake batter evenly between all three. Put the tins on the middle shelf, or bake one after the other if your oven is too small to hold all three. Bake for 20 minutes, then remove and allow to cool to room temperature.
To make the icing, put the cream cheese in a bowl and sift the icing sugar over the top, then beat well to combine. Divide the icing into three, leaving just a little to ice the sides of the cake, and spread generously over one side of each cake. Pile on top of each other and ice the sides.
Grate a little good-quality dark chocolate over the top and place in the fridge to let the icing set.
drive from www.independent.co.uk