It’s been a while since I’ve baked anything – the thought of having to turn the oven on and create a sauna out of my already ‘too-hot’ kitchen gives me the shivers. So when I was asked to bring something to a girly night in, I gritted my teeth and made the quickest, the simplest and the girliest cake possible: the good old chocolate Victoria sponge.
Think of your basic vanilla sponge recipe, then swap out the vanilla and add the chocolate, it’s that simple. I would have to have stopped writing this blog if I couldn’t do this recipe to perfection.
Unfortunately, I was also a teeny, tiny bit hung-over when making the cake – so while it tasted great (no amount of headache or tiredness will stop me from being a perfectionist baker), it wasn’t the prettiest thing in the world. I did attempt to make the icing look respectable but … well you can see the results yourself!
Our girly catch ups are code for an excuse to eat obscene amounts of food; drink lots of wine or, in this case, Pimms (we make seasonal exceptions); and gossip/moan/scream/shout/laugh to our hearts desire. By the time we had gotten to desert, we had sipped a glass (or five) of Pimms, a delectable pasta salad created by Humbugs and Handbags, a never-ending packet of Doritos and turkey dinosaurs (yes, we are that classy).
We were already suffering from food coma but, as true foodies, we were committed to the cause and cut each other large slices of cake. One of the ladies is a cake-hater and had a pot of icing and strawberries instead (I don’t know how we’ve managed to stay friends for so long!).
The chocolate Victoria sponge, taken from Mary Berry’s Baking Bible, is delightfully moist and as light as air. I’m not the biggest fan of chocolate cake but will make an exception for this recipe, even when I’m so full I want to burst! The cream cheese frosting and chocolate sponge is a match made in baking heaven; this truly is the perfect cake for a girly night.
The Diary of a Bake-A-Holic 