Chocolate Celebration Cake

I had a play around with my favourite Victoria Sponge recipe to create this Chocolate Celebration Cake. My mum has an incredible collection of cookery and baking books and Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess is my 'go-to' book every time I want to bake, and it is from Nigella that I learnt how to make the perfect Victoria Sponge. I have altered the quantities in the recipe slightly to create a moist, chocolate sponge and used my ganache recipe to create a rich and velvety filling and topping. If you didn't want the filling to be so rich, you could always fill the sponge with a chocolate buttercream :)

Ingredients

For the sponge

225g softened unsalted butter

225g caster sugar

4 large eggs

140g self-raising flour

90g cocoa powder

½ tsp baking powder

3 capfuls of milk 

For the chocolate ganache

200ml double cream

200g dark chocolate (I used Aldi's 'everyday essentials' dark chocolate)

2tsp caster sugar

25g butter (cut into cubes)

a few squares of chocolate for decoration - optional

Method

Chocolate sponge

1. Preheat your oven to 180ºC and line two sandwich tins - for a circular sponge cake I like to butter the tins and then sprinkle flour into the tins and shake until evenly coated - this gives a 'rounder' cake, rather than having greaseproof paper creases on the cake. 
2. Cream together the butter and the sugar until it is nice and smooth. 
3. Weigh out the flour and cocoa powder together and add the baking powder so that you can sift it all together in the next step.
4. Now add your eggs and flour. It is easier to add an egg one at a time and sieve a few spoonfuls of the cocoa and flour mixture in between each egg. Add the remaining flour with the milk - I find three capfuls of milk to be enough to loosen up the mixture.
5. Make sure the cake batter is all incorporated and smooth and pour into your prepared sandwich tins. Even out the batter and put in the oven for 20 minutes. 
6. Take out of the oven once they are cooked through - a skewer or fork should come out clean. Leave to cool in the tins for around 10 minutes and then leave to cool completely on a wire rack. Once the cakes have cooled you can make the ganache.

Chocolate ganache

1. Break your chocolate into small pieces and put into a heatproof mixing bowl along with the butter.
2. Next, pour your cream into a small saucepan, add the sugar and bring to the boil.
3. As soon as the cream begins to boil, pour it over the chocolate and butter and stir until smooth and silky. 
4. Leave to cool and set for about half and hour and then you can assemble your cake!
   Use half of the ganache for the filling and then place the second cake on top, and use the rest of the ganache for the top. I grated some white chocolate to decorate the cake - you could use whatever you like, white, milk or dark chocolate, sprinkles, silver balls - anything you want!
5. Leave the cake to set for a bit and then serve and enjoy!

I think this cake would be perfect for a birthday or any celebration, it's quick and simple to make and has a really lovely homemade look to it unlike supermarket cakes! 

P.S. I can confirm that it tastes incredible warmed up in the microwave with ice cream!

I have added this recipe to #CookBlogShare with SuperGolden Bakes