Chocolate & blackberry cake

Well I must admit that this cake was put together to use up the final blackberries from my garden. I thought they would go nice with a bit of chocolate for a change, and they were……but you could make it even more chocolately by drizzling melted chocolate over the top ….mmmm

Ingredients:

For the sponge

• 150g SR flour
• 175g caster sugar
• 175 softened butter
• 25g cocoa powder
• 3 large eggs (lightly beaten)

for the syrup 

• bowl of fresh blackberries
• 50g sugar
• 2tbsp water

for the cream

• 50g milk chocolate
• 250ml fresh double cream

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180° /FAN 160/GAS 4 and grease two sandwich tins.

Wash the blackberries well, drain and set aside.

Beat together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.

Add the egg mix gradually, then fold in the flour and cocoa powder.

Now, divide the mixture into the two tins and bake in the oven for 20 minutes allowing to cool for 5 minutes before removing the cakes from the tins.

For the syrup take a good handful of the blackberries and blitz them then run them through a sieve. All you want is the juice. Place the juice, sugar and water in a pan on a low heat until the sugar is dissolved then turn up the heat and boil off half of the liquid. Spoon this over the top of the base sponge, as you can see on the photos it’s nice and thick, not quite as thick as jam but it’s not runny.

Cut the top sponge into as many portions as you want, it’s much easier to do it this way than to slice it when it’s sitting on top of the base. I cut it into 6 these are good man sized portions 😀

Melt the chocolate and set aside to cool, stirring it often, you don’t want it to set again. Whip up the cream until its quite stiff and add the cooled melted chocolate and whip it again until it’s all combined then plop it on the base sponge and cover it evenly with the remaining blackberries.

Position the cut pieces of sponge on the top and dust with icing sugar (optional)