Chocolate Berry Cake

A really luscious and decadent dessert or cake for a special occasion like my sons's birthday.

I always make a chocolate cake for my son Liam's birthday. His favourite is this cake, however it is quite complicated so sometimes I make this cake instead.  It has all the flavours that he likes, chocolate, raspberry and a sort of mousse filling. I think it is a good alternative.







It is best if the cream and chocolate are allowed to stand for a few hours and spread thickly on top of the cake. Do not add theberry topping until just before serving.

Chocolate Berry Cake

Ingredients

Chocolate Cake Base Butter & flour for greasing tin 285gm dark chocolate, broken into small pieces 125 g butter, cut into small pieces 6 large eggs temperature 1 cup castor sugar 1 tsp vanilla Icing sugar for decoration

Chocolate Cream 300 ml whipping cream 2 teaspoons vanilla 200 g dark chocolate Berry Topping 1 cup frozen raspberries 1 punnet strawberries 1 punnet blueberries

Method

Preheat oven to 180 deg C. Line the bottom of an 8inch (20 cm) springform pan and butter and flour the sides.

Melt chocolate with the butter and keep warm.

Beat eggs and sugar in large mixing bowl on high speed until the egg mixture is pale yellow and thick, 4 to 6 minutes. 

Add chocolate mixture and vanilla to the egg mixture; mix well.

Pour batter evenly into prepared pan and smooth top.

Bake 15 minutes. Reduce oven temp to 170C; bake another 15 minutes. Reduce oven temp to 120C; bake 30 minutes longer. (Total baking time is 1 hour). Turn off oven; prop oven door and allow cake to remain in oven for 30 minutes. 

Remove cake from oven and cover top with damp paper towelling; let stand 5 minutes.

Remove towelling and cool cake completely. The top of the cake will crack and collapse; this is normal- press top of cake down lightly to smooth top. 

Remove springform and paper from the bottom of the cake.

Place cake onto a serving platter.

Top with chocolate cream and refrigerate. It is better if left for a few hours or overnight.

To serve

Spoon the mashed raspberries over the cream and then pile the fresh berries on top. 

Dust with icing sugar and serve immediately.

To Make Chocolate Cream

Finely grate the chocolate.

Whip cream, stir in vanilla and add the finely grated chocolate.

Berry Topping

Defrost the raspberries and mash with a fork

Wash the strawberries, remove the stalk and slice into quarters. Wash blueberries.