Chocolate Sponge Cake:

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

6 eggs, separated

A pinch of salt

1 1/4 cups sugar

1/2 cup cold water

1/4 cup (heaped) cocoa powder

1. Preheat the oven the 325F and butter a circular cake tin with baking paper. Mix the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt in one bowl.

2. Beat the 6 egg yolks in a separate large bowl and mix in the sugar.

3. Fold in the flour/cocoa mixture alternately with the water in roughly 2-3 additions each.

4. Whip the egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff peaks form, then fold this gently into the batter.

5. Pour batter into the tin and bake roughly 45-60 minutes. Check to see if the cake is ready by inserting a metal skewer into the middle of the cake. If it comes out clean, the cake is ready. Take the cake out of the oven and allow to cool.

6. Once cool, slice in half, and add a layer of chocolate buttercream. Place the top half back on, and layer another level of buttercream on top. Don’t worry too much about adding a layer of buttercream to the side of the cake, or about how the cake looks. Once you top it with the macaroons and fruit, it doesn’t matter what the bottom half looks like!

Chocolate Buttercream:

Ingredients:

3 egg whites

1 cup sugar

300g butter, room temperature

200g good quality dark chocolate, melted over hot water bath (I used 80% Green & Black’s)

1. Hand whisk the egg whites until foamy. Mix in the sugar, and place mixture over a water bath. Keep whisking by hand until the mixture turns whitish, is piping hot and the sugar has dissolved.

2. Remove from water bath and mix with an electric mixer on high speed. Keep mixing until the bowl starts to cool down.

3. Add butter, one tablespoon at a time at first, then two tablespoons at a time. Make sure to incorporate the butter properly into the mixture each time you add butter.

4. Add melted chocolate and incorporate completely.

5. Layer chocolate buttercream onto cake as described above, making sure that the top layer is quite thick. Again, it doesn’t have to look pretty as that’s what the macaroons will do.

6. Place the macaroons one at a time all around the cake to form a circle, as seen in the pictures. Add fruit to the middle and decorate with daisies or any flowers my happen to have lying around.

Keep refrigerated and serve cold.

Recipe  from Mowielicous

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 6:25 pm and is filed under Taste.