Chocolate fudge cake

The perfect chocolate fudge cake. You want it to be moist, fudgey, rich and chocolatey. I had been in search of this for a while, and when I finally found a good recipe, I had a chance to test it out on my brothers for their birthday. The finished result went down VERY well. The sponge doesn't even have any butter in it so it can almost be considered healthy (ha!). If you can, use a very dark cocoa powder, such as Bourneville (but Tesco does a very good imitation as well).

This recipe makes a two-layer, 7in cake.

Gather your equipment

Essential equipment:  7in cake tins, scales, mixing bowl, measuring jug, measuring spoons, fork, mixing spoon

Optional equipment: spatula, sieve

• It is not the end of the world if you don’t sieve everything in this recipe.
• Make sure you line your cake tins so that you can turn out your cakes easily

Gather your ingredients

For this recipe you'll need: 175g self-raising flour, 3tbsp cocoa powder, 1tsp bicarbonate of soda, 150g caster sugar, 150ml sunflower/vegetable oil, 150ml milk, 2 eggs, 2tbsp golden syrup

Prepare to bake

Preheat oven to 180°C and line your cake tins if you haven’t already. I tend to just cut out a circle of baking paper for the base, then spread a little vegetable oil around the sides.

Stir dry ingredients together

Weigh (and sift, if you have a sieve) the flour, cocoa powder, bicarbonate of soda and caster sugar straight into the mixing bowl. Stir everything together well.

Beat wet ingredients together

Measure the oil and milk in the same jug, then add the eggs and golden syrup and beat together using the fork. Make sure you scrape all the golden syrup from the bottom of the jug as it tends to stick. Also make sure the eggs have been beaten in well.

Combine wet and dry ingredients together

Make a ‘well’ in the dry ingredients, and pour in the wet. Stir well until everything is combined and smooth.

Pour into tins and bake

As soon as everything is mixed, pour the mixture into the cake tins equally. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until a skewer/toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool in the cake tins, then turn out, pick an icing, sandwich and decorate! If you're not too confident on the sandwiching step, click here for some tips.

Here, I sandwiched and topped with a chocolate fudge icing, then decorated with maltesers, oreos, rolos, reese’s peanut butter cups, chocolate covered peanuts and drizzles of chocolate:

Here, I sandwiched with a chocolate fudge icing, and topped with a dark, rich ganache:

Chocolate fudge cake: - makes a double-layer 7in cake 175g self-raising flour 3tbsp cocoa powder 1tsp bicarbonate of soda 150g caster sugar 2 eggs 150ml sunflower oil 150ml milk 2tbsp golden syrup Preheat oven to 180°C Stir together flour, cocoa powder, bicarbonate of soda and sugar Beat together oil, milk, syrup and eggs Make a well in the dry ingredients, pour the wet ingredients in Stir well until the mixture is smooth and well-combined Pour into two lined cake tins Bake for 25-30 minutes Recipe originally from: BBC Good Food