Celtic Pinay: Chocolate Cake with Coffee Cream and Chocolate Curls

It was a Sunday afternoon and I just finished doing some stuff around the garden... And then I felt the baking bug bite.... And so I had to bake something!

Recalling that a colleague found a recipe from the newspaper a couple of weeks ago, I fished out the clipping from my bag and thought it might be nice to make this - it was called an Esk Valley Chocolate Cake, from 50 Fabulous Chocolate Cakes edited by Rita Erlich - except I did have a minor tweak on the whipped cream by adding coffee liquer...

Anyway, this was made from

1 tbsp butter
1/2 cup cocoa (scant half a cup)
1/2 cup boiling water
3 eggs
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp bicarb
1 tsp cream of tartar
Whipped cream to fill (about 150ml singe cream whipped with about 2 tbsp of Kahlua, if you like)

Icing
1/2 cup pure icing sugar
1/2 tbsp cocoa
1 big tsp butter blended with 1 dessertspoon boiling water

Chocolate curls to decorate (details below)

Method
Pre-heat oven to 180c. Grese and line a 20cm cake tin
Melt buttere, cocoa and mix with boiling water. Let cool

Beat eggs and sugar until fluffy (around 5-7 minutes on high, the color will be pale and if you life the beaters it will leave a ribbon-like trail)' then add the flour sifted with bicarb and cream of tartar. Add cooled cocoa mixture and pour into well greased tin. Bake for about 30-40mnutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Set aside to cool.

To make icing, sift the icing sugar and 1/2 tbsp cocoa. Blend with butter and water. I whisked this over a very low heat until the sugar has melted and hasa pouring consistency.

When the cake has cooled completely, split in half horizontally and fill with whipped cream.

Top with other half, smother with the icing and top with chocolate curls.

To make chocolate curls - melt some chocolate (i used a combination or dark and milk chocolate, about 70g) and spread out evenly into a 2mm thick sheet (this is what the instructions said, i'm not sure if i made it correctly, hehe). Allow to cool until set but not to hard, then draw a spatula at an angle of about 40degrees (again, this is what the instructions said!) along the chocolate. Chocolate that is too cold will splinter, too warm it will not form proper curls. It does take a fair bit of practice - as you can see some of my 'alleged curls' look like shavings!