A Valentine's Day Chocolate Cake

Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting & raspberries

The perfect excuse for a rich dark chocolate cake! The best chocolate cake I ever made was actually from Nigella’s ‘Feast’, it was a traditional chocolate cake made with sour cream and it turned out really moist. I didn’t have all these ingredients so I am making a simple recipe from James Martin’s 'Desserts'. I used more butter version so it would keep moist for longer.

For the cake:

175g butter softened

175g caster sugar

160g Self-raising flour

25g cocoa powder

½ tsp vanilla extract

3 med eggs

1 tsp baking powder

1. Whisk the butter, sugar and vanilla extract until light & fluffy
2.  Add eggs – one at a time (this stops it curdling)
3. Sieve in the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and fold until combined
4. Gas mark 4 (180◦) – I baked for 60 mins because I could only find one cake tin and so I made a deeper cake. But if you have two tins then you only need to bake for around 35mins.
5. Remove and cool for a few minutes before turning onto a wire rack

For the frosting (approx measures as I usually go by eye with lots of tasting along the way...)

I like to use cream cheese as it keeps it lighter but still gives you that creamy, chocolatey finish.

250g cream cheese

150g icing sugar (sifted)

3 tbsp cocoa powder (sifted)

50g dark chocolate

50g butter

Melt the butter and the chocolate first. Then add the icing sugar and coco powder. Lastly blend in the cream cheese (kept at room temperature) so that the mixture is creamy & smooth. Keep in fridge to cool for a bit before spreading onto your cooled cake. Top with raspberries and icing sugar and serve with a big chocolate kiss X