Chocolate Cream Cake

It is school holidays and we’ve had a visitor – our gorgeous grandson, Cooper, which meant it was time to cook with Granny, play chess with Papa, and this time, there was also a little piano lesson too!

We only had 48 hours, but we managed to pack a lot in. Cooper had a list of what we needed to cook:

Meringues
Chocolate Cream Cake
Lemon Slice (for Papa), and
Rocky Road

A major search to find the Rocky Road recipe, but more about that later, then he wrote up the shopping list. A trip to the supermarket and home via my favourite book shop – The Book Shoppe, where I was delighted to hear him asking Janene about his favourite authors. Yes, there was also time for reading in between everything else!

Back at home, and decked out in Chef’s Whites, Cooper was ready to get to work! When it come to the meringues – last time we made Evil Pig meringues, I thought that they looked rather sinister, so didn’t even mention them. Instead I asked Cooper what colour the meringue shoud be. His answer – purple! With blue and rose pink colouring at hand, I took a portion of the meringue and began mixing in the colour. It was then that Cooper suggested that we should make evil pigs again, so we ditched the idea of making the meringue purple, and the Evil Pigs made a return! After a little more chit chat (and there was plenty of that), this time, we also made crazy critters, aka porcupines. They were put in the oven and the waiting began – how frustrating that even though they were cooked, they still couldn’t come out of the oven until they were totally cooled! Continue reading →

Chocolate Sponge (AKA Granny’s Chocolate Cream Cake!)

Prep Time

15 mins

Cook Time

20 mins

Total Time

40 mins

This has to be one of our families’ favourite cakes. We make it for just about everyone’s birthday…And it used to be warmly referred to as “Nana’s Chocolate Cream Cake”, that is because she used to make it for everyone when they visited, and it became their favourite. Even our late Pekingese Princess’s knew exactly where to go in her kitchen, where they’d look up longingly to the bench, where they knew she would have the cake ready to serve.

The batton has now been passed, and my family now refer to it as Granny's Chocolate Cream Cake as I make it for them almost every time we are together.

Category: Cakes

Style: Australian

Keyword: cake, Chocolate, chocolate sponge, sponge

Quantity: 8 people

Author: Grace Flood (my late mum)

Ingredients

4 eggs
1 dsp golden syrup
2 heaped dsp cocoa
½ tsp carb soda
Pinch of salt
½ cup cornflour
¾ cup caster sugar
2 heaped dsp Plain Flour (for gluten free us GF flour)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 200˚C.
Grease two 20 cm round cake tins with butter, making sure that all the internal surface is covered. Add a little cornflour and shake, twist and turn the tin to make sure the butter is then lightly dusted with flour. Set aside.
Carefully separate the egg yolks from the whites, placing the egg whites into a large basin, and the egg yolks into a small dish for later.
Sift the dry ingredients (excluding the salt and sugar). Set aside.
Beat egg whites with salt until stiff.
Add yolks, then add the sugar gradually, while still beating. Beat well to ensure the mixture is not grainy from the sugar.
Add the golden syrup and beat again, to combine.
Sift in the dry ingredients and fold through the wet mixture.
Pour the batter into the two prepared tins.
Bake for 20 minutes in preheated oven, or until you notice it just beginning to come away from the side of the tins and the sponge bounces back when you press it lightly with your fingers.
When cool, split each sponge in half and fill with whipped cream which is sweetened with a little sugar, and flavoured with vanilla. You could ice the sponges, if you wish, but we prefer just to dust them with icing sugar.

Notes

For gluten free, replace the plain flour with gluten free custard powder, and dust the cake tins with cornflour.
I like to sift the dry ingredients three times to incorporate as much air as I can, and to ensure that they are all well blended together.

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