Chocolate Buttermilk Cake

This chocolate cake is a marvel. Easy to bake and yet so exquisite (intense chocolate flavours), perfect as a birthday cake. For decoration, I made red roses in marzipan and added colourful candles. No matter what age you are, blowing out the candles on a cake is quite magical! I always feel excited about it...

This recipe is from my recipe book “The Australian Women’s Weekly - Chocolate Cakes”.

I have adapted the recipe to my own taste as follows!

Ingredients

180g butter, chopped

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

330g sugar

4 eggs, separated

110g self-raising flour

35g cocoa powder (I used Cailler)

180ml buttermilk

Chocolate filling

300g dark eating chocolate, melted (I used Cailler)

187g butter, melted

60g icing sugar mixture

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease a deep 24cm round cake mould.

2. Beat butter, essence and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy; beat in egg yolks, one at a time, until just combined. Then, stir in sifted dry ingredients and buttermilk.

3. Beat egg whites in clean small bowl with electric mixer until soft peaks form; fold into cake mixture in two batches.

4. Pour cake mixture into prepared mould. Bake for about 50 minutes. Cool cake in mould.

5. Split cake into two layers. Reserve about 1 cup of the chocolate filling. Place one cake layer onto serving plate, spread thinly with some of the remaining chocolate filling. Spread reserved filling all over cake. Refrigerate 3 hours before serving.

Chocolate Filling

Combine chocolate and butter in medium bowl; stir in sifted icing sugar. Cool filling to room temperature; beat with wooden spoon until thick and spreadable.

Serves 10

Tips This cake can be made a day ahead and kept, covered, in the refrigerator.