Spring is almost here. To me, that sounds like a good excuse for chocolate cake!
My family call this recipe “THE” chocolate cake recipe. My mum’s had it for years and I think it’s from an old copy of Good Housekeeping magazine. The oil in the recipe means the chocolate cake is dense, moist and a bit like fudge cake. It’s gorgeous! Although it’s still a little early for Easter eggs, spring is definitely in the air and this inspired the grass buttercream topping. Oh, and I just love Cadbury’s mini eggs, so any excuse to use them, I take it! 🙂
Ingredients
- 10 oz / 280 g self-raising flour
- 3 tbsp cocoa powder
- 6 oz / 170 g caster sugar
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 0.5 pints / 280 ml / 3.4 fl oz vegetable oil (sunflower oil or any of your choice).
-
0.25 pints / 140 ml of milk (I used full fat)
-
3 tbsp golden syrup
-
0.5 tsp vanilla essence
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees C / Gas Mark 4 / 350 degrees F. Grease and line two circular 8-inch / 20-cm tins with baking paper.
Sift the flour and cocoa powder into a bowl. Add the sugar.
Make a well in the centre of the mixture and add the milk and the bicarb of soda. Add the syrup and oil to the rest of the ingredients and beat until mixed well.
Pour the mixture into your tins. Like this:
Bake for 25-30 minutes until a knife comes out clean from the centre of the cake. Take out of the oven and leave to cool in the tins. Like this:
Decoration
I made a batch of buttercream by mixing 180 g / 6.5 oz butter with 360 g / 13 oz icing sugar (I should say, at this point, that I think I made too much. I had some of the green icing left over…). Once I had a smooth buttercream, I split the batch in half. To one half I added 45 g / 1.5 oz of melted dark chocolate. I used this chocolate buttercream as the filling in the cake sandwich. I used a spatula to dollop it onto the bottom layer of cake and used a knife to spread it out into an even layer. Then I put the other cake on top. Like this:
To the other half of the buttercream batch I added green food colouring until I was happy with the colour. To get a grass effect, there is an actual piping tip for grass/ hair effect (amazing, I know), but I don’t own one. Instead, I used a small, star-shaped tip to get the grass effect on top of the chocolate sandwich cake. I don’t mind telling you this took a good five minutes and a steady hand! Here’s a (bad) photo of the grass icing work in progress:
To finish off I used Cadbury’s mini eggs to top the cake and some wafer daisies (no, I didn’t make them. I cheated and bought them. Enough is enough!).
It slices beautifully too!
A final photo!
If you’re looking for other chocolate cake recipes, you could try:
My chocolate fudge cake with chocolate buttercream rosettes.
Heavenly chocolate cake with chocolate fudge frosting.
Claire Huston / Art and Soul
Ohmygawd, so pretty! And you never need an excuse for chocolate cake ^^
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Thank you! I was really pleased with how it turned out. I thought, “oh no!” when I discovered I didn’t have the “grass piping tip”!! (who knew that existed?). But the star tip did a good job in the end 🙂
And it tastes lovely, which is the most important thing.
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mmm yum!!!!
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It was delicious. I’m not thinking of making another one for my parents’ visit next week. I made this one a few days ago and there’s not much left…
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I bet!! haha I understand- that cake has “eat me quick!” written all over it :p
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That’s so pretty!
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Thank you! I was worried the green icing would be garish… but it turned out ok 🙂
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So springlike…now, if it was white cake, I’d be tempted to make it! But the rest of my family would love the chocolate!
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I was thinking of doing a plain sponge (white) cake to feature in a couple of week’s time (bordered by chocolate finger biscuits). It would feature a little bit of chocolate buttercream on top, but it would be decorative and could be scraped off and donated to someone else! 🙂
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That cake looks fantastic! I wish I had a steady enough hand to do all of the different piping styles haha.
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Thank you! The piping was a bit tricky. In the end it turned out best just to go as quickly as possible 🙂
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Wow! I love this so much! It looks beautiful 🙂
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Thank you! 🙂
I was a bit worried about the green icing, but it turned out ok in the end (and still tasted nice).
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Looks gorgeous! Well done! 🙂
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Thank you! The green icing was a gamble but it turned out ok 🙂
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Wow! That looks amazing! I now have such a craving for cake… 🙂
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Thank you! I turned out really nice again. This is a very reliable recipe. As long as you don’t burn it, it’s guaranteed delicious 🙂
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Looks amazing! 🙂 How do you get the frosting so perfect?
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Thank you! It’s not as perfect as it could have been but piping it certainly helps.
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Claire, this is so beautiful, I’m speechless! I just realized earlier today how close Easter is! 🙂
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Thank you! It turned out better than I’d hoped 🙂 Easter is early this year and has sneaked up quickly.
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Gorgeous! I need to be more adventurous and develop my icing skills….just need more hours in a day 😉
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Thank you! 🙂 Making the buttercream is probably the biggest faff! Once you’ve got it ready, icing can be quite fun.
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lovely, sweet and perfect for Easter 😀
amazing!
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Thank you! Any excuse for mini eggs! I actually quite glad they don’t sell them all year round… 🙂
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What a beautiful cake!
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Thank you! I was really pleased with how it turned out. And it tasted great 🙂
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lovely
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I read this last night and have been thinking about it all day…YUMMY! I really like cakes made with oil, I’ve got a friend who does an amazing carrot cake with oil…it can give a really nice texture. I’ll be giving this a go soon certainly…will let you know how I get on (I can say now that sadly the decoration will not similar in any way!) xx
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Thank you 🙂 I hope it turns out well for you. If you can be bothered, sifting the flour and cocoa powder does make a slight difference (although it still tastes great either way!)
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Oh I’m a great believer in sifting both of those! X
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Such a beautiful cake!! Yay for spring! 🙂
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Thank you! I agree: it’s great to see the sunshine again 🙂
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This is so adorable! I’m literally bouncing in my seat! You’ve inspired me to make my own Easter cake before the month runs out.
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Thank you! I hope your Easter cake turns out well 🙂
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Thanks!
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The cake looks so cute…chocolate cake is my weakness…
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Thank you! It’s one of mine too 🙂
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Wow!!!! That is so goo I’m going to make one! 🙂
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Great! I hope it turns out well for you. It’s a nice easy one and the only thing that’s every gone wrong for me is over-baking it slightly, but even then it tasted delicious 🙂
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I can’t believe you did that! 🙂
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Happens all the time. I never let a tiny bit of burnt cake put me off. You can always cut off the worst bits and cover up with more buttercream – haha! 🙂
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Good old butter cream lol
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I’m not sure if I’ve done this right…smells amazing but my mixture didn’t look like your mixture – there was no pouring! And it’s sunk. Hmm.Still think it will be delicious but can I just check about the mixing part. When I made a well and put the milk etc in should I have mixed it up THEN added the rest of the ingredients? I think I need some clarity in the putting things in a bowl and mixing stage! Sorry…you are dealing with a total novice!
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No necessarily. You could stir through the milk and the bicarb first, just to make sure the moisture activates the bicarb, but you shouldn’t have to. In fact, you should be able to put all the ingredients in a mixer in one go and blitz it together and it should work. If there was no pouring, maybe you didn’t use enough milk and oil? Half a pint of milk and quarter pint of oil?
Did it at least taste nice?
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Hi Claire,
I hope you’re well.
My name’s Matt, and I’m from the dotcomgiftshop blog.
We are currently writing a post for our blog about our favourite Easter bake ideas. While researching, we found your double chocolate easter cake recipe – and we’d really like to give it a mention in our post, and maybe use an image (giving you and your blog full credit, of course).
If you would rather we did not mention your blog or use an image, do let me know and I will omit it. I will also happily show you the post once it has gone live on our blog.
All the best,
Matt
—
http://www.dotcomgiftshop.com
blog@dotcomgiftshop.com
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Hi Marr,
That would be fine, as long as you mention where the recipe and image come from, as you say.
And please do let me know when it’s gone live on your blog so I can take a look.
Thank you,
Claire
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Hi Claire,
That’s wonderful, thank you.
I’ll drop you a line on here once it’s live on the blog.
Have a great week.
All the best,
Matt
—
http://www.dotcomgiftshop.com
blog@dotcomgiftshop.com
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Hi Claire,
This is just a line to let you know that the article I mentioned recently is now live on the dotcomgiftshop blog.
Here’s our article:
6 EASY EASTER BAKES
https://www.dotcomgiftshop.com/blog/6-easy-easter-bakes
We think your blog post is really useful and we hope you like the mention. Of course, if you would rather we remove your contribution, just let me know.
If you’d like to share or mention this article to your followers, here’s a handy tweet link: http://bit.ly/easter_bakes_tweet
– or if you prefer Facebook, just use: http://bit.ly/easter_bakes
Please let me know if you have any questions or comments – always good to hear back from bloggers we’ve featured.
All the best,
Matt
—
dotcomgiftshop
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Hi Matt,
That looks great, thank you.
I’ll be trying those hot cross brownies!
I have a post queued to go today, but will definitely be sharing this far and wide at the weekend 🙂
Thank you,
Claire
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Hi Claire,
I’m glad you like the article; thank you for being involved! Let me know if you attempt the brownies – i’d love to see how they turn out 🙂
Have great weekend!
Matt
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