Chocolate Birthday Cake with Doves farm

I was recently contacted by Doves Farm and asked if I'd like to bake a special cake to celebrate their 40th birthday and an impressive 40 years of expertise in organic flour and food production.

Doves Farm is an award-winning, British family-owned organic flour, gluten free flour and food producer which is regarded as a pioneer in organic, ethical and sustainable farming and food production. In fact the Doves Farm family grew and processed their first organic wholemeal flour in 1978, no one else in the UK was doing this at the time as the nation’s daily loaf was of the white, sliced variety.

With such an impressive history I knew the products I would receive to bake my cake with would be good quality and I wasn't disappointed. I was sent a packet of plain flour, a packet of self-raising flour and organic plain chocolate chips and on sampling the chocolate chips I could taste the quality of the chocolate. I had to stop my daughter eating them all so I had some to bake with!

I wanted to make a cake that would be served at a family birthday meal to reflect the family business aspect of Doves Farm. I thought a chocolate cake would be perfect for this as chocolate cake is always a winner! I filled the cake with chocolate buttercream mixed with chocolate chips and topped the cake with more of the buttercream and crushed Oreo biscuits - delicious!

You'll notice that this recipe doesn't have any eggs in the ingredients, this means the sponge is quite dense but when topped with the light chocolatey buttercream and crushed biscuits it's a wonderful combination. You could in fact make this cake completely vegetarian friendly by substituting the butter for Stork baking spread.

This is a simple cake to make as it doesn't involve any whisking or beating, my daughter helped me to make it and it was easy for her to mix the batter together with a fork. Why not try making this cake for your next family celebration?

Happy birthday to Doves Farm!

Ingredients

For the cake
85g butter
2tbsp golden syrup
1tbsp vanilla extract
300g Doves Farm Organic Self Raising White Flour
100g caster sugar
25g cocoa powder
1tsp bicarbonate of soda

For the buttercream
85g butter
170g icing sugar
1tbsp cocoa powder
1 tbsp Doves Farm Organic Fairtrade Plain Chocolate Chips

For decorating
8 Oreo biscuits

Method

- Heat the oven to 160C/ fan 140C/ gas 3.
- Grease and baseline a 20cm round cake tin.
- Put the butter, syrup and vanilla into a heatproof jug, add 300ml boiling water and whisk with a fork to combine, making sure the butter has melted.

- Sieve the flour, cocoa, sugar and bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl, then pour in the butter and syrup mixture.

- Stir all the ingredients together until you have a smooth batter, then pour into the prepared tin.

- Bake for 50-55 mins until the cake is well risen and springy to touch.
- Leave to cool in the tin for about 15 minutes before turning out to cool on a wire rack.

- While the cake is cooling you can make the icing.
- Beat the butter until smooth
- Sieve in the icing sugar
- Add 1 tbsp of water then mix well to create a smooth buttercream
- Sieve in the cocoa powder and mix again until all the cocoa is combined
- Stir in the chocolate chips

- Once the cake is cool, slice the cake in half horizontally to create two layers. spread three quarters of the butter cream over the bottom layer of sponge using a palette knife or spatular.

- Put the second layer on the cake then spread the remaining buttercream on the top of the cake in a circle in the centre.

- Put the Oreos in a freezer bag and fasten tightly, bash the biscuits with a rolling pin or mallet to create crumbs.

- Sprinkle the crumbs on top of the icing then decorate with the remaining Oreos.

Find out more about Doves Farm by visiting www.dovesfarm.co.uk



I was asked to bake a cake by Doves Farm and they sent a £10 gift voucher and some Doves Farm products but all views are my own.