The Case of the Collapsing Sponge...

Why is it that when you want to be impressive, everything goes belly-up? I decided to break with chocolate cake tradition and make a choc chip 'plain' sponge for Valentine's Day. But the centre didn't cook so I had to get a scone cutter and cut it out and improvise. All went well in the end, but still, how irritating!! I think maybe I should have put it in the top of the oven rather than the bottom. Anyway, it tasted fine in the end, and it looked grand too, which is all that matters.
You will need a 20cm (8in) springform tin.

Choc chips going in

You can see the dip in the middle

The finished article - not too bad, all things considered

Served with Alpro soy lemon and lime yogurt

INGREDIENTS

175g butter, softened

175g caster sugar

3 eggs, beaten

175g self-raising flour, sifted

50g of dark choc chips

FOR THE DECORATION:

strawberries (rinsed, dried & chopped in fours)

50g dark choc

5g icing sugar

METHOD:

·        Line the base of the tin with greaseproof paper and grease the sides with some butter

·        Preheat oven to 180C

·        Cream the butter in a large bowl or in an electric food mixer until soft

·        Add the sugar and beat until the mixture is light and fluffy

·        Add the eggs slowly into the sugar and butter mixture, beating well between each addition

·        Sift the flour into the bowl on top of the egg mixture and fold in gently using a spatula

·        Mix through the choc chips

·        Scrape mixture into the tin and put in the oven for about 25 minutes

·        Press down lightly on the top of the cake, if the cake springs back, it's done (mine was still wobbly and spent another 10 mins in the oven, being watched closely)

·        Once the cake has cooled, melt the chocolate in a bowl over hot water and mix through the icing sugar

·        Spatula the choc icing onto the cake and decorate with strawberries

·        To create my strawberry volcano-effect (ahem!) take the middle out with a scone cutter or glass and fill with chopped strawberries.

VEGAN CHOCOLATE CAKE - VALENTINE'S DAY

Personally I'm not a huge fan of chocolate cake but what nicer for Valentine's Day for my favourite vegan than Vegan Chocolate Cake? I got this recipe from veganchocolatecake.net and changed the weights to European ones.

Ingredients

185g plain flour
3 tablespoons cocoa
1 teaspoon bread soda
100g sugar

½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
5 tablespoons cooking oil

1 tablespoon cider vinegar
240ml cold water

Icing

1 small bar dark choc melted

1 tablespoon of icing sugar, to thicken

Method

• Preheat oven to 180˚C
• Grease and line an 8 inch round tin
• Sieve the flour, cocoa, bread soda and salt in a large bowl
• Mix in the sugar and salt
• Make 3 holes in the dry ingredients. Put vanilla essence into one, oil into another and cider vinegar into the third.
• Pour cold water over the top. Mix only enough to combine all ingredients.
• Pour the batter into the tin
• Bake for 30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean
• Decoration:
• When the cakes are cool, melt the chocolate
• Mix in the icing sugar
• Palette the icing onto the top
• Decorate with chopped nuts