Ice Your Chocolate Cake Recipe

KEY POINTS

Preparation Time:	30 minutes	Cooking Time:	None
How Difficult	Medium	Freeze?	No
	Servings	1 Iced Cake

INGREDIENTS
The basic ingredients for the chocolate fudge are:

Metric	Imperial
200g icing sugar	7 oz icing sugar
175 g soft butter	6 oz soft butter
125 g dark cooking chocolate	4 1/2 oz dark cooking chocolate
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract	1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

CLICK ANY PICTURE BELOW TO ENLARGE IT

Break the chocolate into small pieces and melt it in a bowl. Either use the microwave on medium for three minutes or float the bowl in a pan of simmering hot water.

In a bowl, mash the butter with a strong fork for a couple of minutes. This will make it a softer and creamier texture. Sieve the icing sugar over the butter and mix together well for a couple of minutes with a fork.

Add the melted chocolate and the vanilla to the mixture and mix in well with a fork. This should take around 3 minutes.

Spread a little bit less than half of the chocolate fudge mix on the base of one of the chocolate sponges. Put the base of the second chocolate sponge on top.

Using a knife (a palette knife as shown in the picture is ideal) spread the remainder of the chocolate fudge over the top and sides of the cake.

To texture the top of the chocolate cake, take a wide knife (something similar to the palette knife in the previous picture is ideal) and draw it across the icing at a slight angle. Repeat this over the top of the cake.

Further decoration is only limited by your imagination and tatse.

This one is so simple! Take a handful of walnuts or other nuts and arrange them over the centre of the cake.

Another attractive nutty alternative is to use almonds and sprinkle sieved icing sugar over them.

One final idea is to decorate with white chocolate scrapings. Take a large bar of white chocolate and with a sharp knife scrape of curls of chocolate from the smooth side of the bar. Hold the upright chocolate bar in your left hand and scrape down the flat side of the bar with the knife. Never scrape the knife towards you as recommended in many cook books.