Chocolate cake.

Today's treat is a chocolate sponge cake.

For the sponge you'll need:
5 eggs
200g caster sugar
200g flour
2tsp baking powder
2tsp cocoa powder, if you want your sponges to be chocolate
(mine weren't)

For the icing you'll need:
200g chocolate of your choice
100ml single cream
50g unsalted butter (softened)

To make the sponge, beat the eggs and the sugar to ribbons, this should take about 5 minutes. Sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa (if you're using it) into the eggs and gently fold, without losing too much air. Bake in tins of your choice for 10-15 minutes, until golden brown and the skewer comes out clean. I baked mine in small 7" tins, simply because I detest having to slice sponge, it's a dirty messy business. The amount of batter makes for 3 small layers. Do feel free to bake all of yours in one big tin and slice it into layers, if that's what you prefer.

While the cakes cool, make the icing.

Melt together the chocolate and cream in a water bath, cool to room temperature. This is very important, because if the mixture isn't cool, the butter will melt and instead of icing you'll get a split disgusting something. When the chocolate is cool to the touch, whisk in the softened butter.

Assemble the cake, layering the sponge with the icing, decorate to your liking, I used sugar pearls.

Enjoy!