The best chocolate cake?

Ok, every year, just before Christmas I go mad for cookery magazines. I buy them all and sit with a cup of tea flicking through the glossy mouth-watering pages wondering which delectable goodies I'm going to make for the festive season.

Apres bebe, it's more about what I'm going to have time to make. Which hasn't been much. Infact this year, not even a mince pie......sigh.

Anyway I still get the mags and then, because they take up a lot of room and alas do seem to contain an awful lot of advertisements, I rip them up! Carefully, I should add. I go through each magazine carefully tearing out each page which has a recipe I love and then I stick them all into a file with plastic slip covers.

I have four of the files now! Voila! Instant new cookery books! They're not all Christmas recipes as throughout the year I do tend to pick up the odd copy of the Waitrose or Sainsbury's magazine while out shopping.

I also stick in anything I print out from the internet. My only problem now is finding certain recipes without trawling through all four files......Add cataloguing to my new year to do list....!

So I saw this recipe in one of my bumper files for this chocolate cake and gave it a go. I'm not the biggest chocolate fan I have to say, I know...What's wrong with me??! If I'm out for dinner I'll very rarely (if at all) pick the chocolate dessert on the menu, I'd always rather go for something lemony or a brulee of some kind.

However, I do think proper homemade chocolate cake is to die for. Especially something big and stodgy - perfect with a cup of tea!

I'm not sure where this recipe cutting came from, I have a feeling it may have been the Sainsbury's mag, but I'm not sure, I really should write it down. Anyway wherever it came from, it's good!

So good that I made it for a certain little lady's first birthday. She didn't have any, but I did. And it was good! I'll be sure to tell her when she's older! He he!

Chocolate Cake

250g unsalted butter

300g light muscovado sugar

100g plain flour, sifted

100g self-raising flour, sifted

5 eggs

300g dark chocolate, melted and slightly cooled

Chocolate Icing

200g dark chocolate

200ml double cream

Butter and line a 20cm cake tin

Preheat oven to 160º C/ fan 140ºC / Gas mark 3

Using an electric whisk, beat together the butter and sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy.

beat in the eggs, one at a time, adding one or two tbsp of the flour as you go if the mixture starts to split.

Pour the melted chocolate into the mix, beating as you do so and then fold in the rest of the flour.

Spoon into the tin and bake for 1 hour 30 minutes, or until the cake has risen and has a crust on top and a skewer comes out clean.

Cool, then remove from the tin. Split the cake with a knife horizontally.

To make the icing, melt together the chocolate and cream over a low heat then cool until thickened.

Fill the cake with the icing, then spread the rest over the outside.