Mmm... smooth chocolate frosting between layers of spongy cake. Need we say more?

Makes a 15cm cake

INGREDIENTS
250g unsalted butter, plus 1 tbsp for greasing
1 tbsp cocoa powder, for dusting
180g dark chocolate
300g sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs
¾ cup whipping cream
180g plain flour, sifted
180g self-raising flour, sifted 

For The Frosting
565g bittersweet chocolate, chopped
¾ cup whipping cream
360g unsalted butter
¼ cup honey

DIRECTIONS
1 Preheat oven to 160 deg C.

2 Line the base of a 15cm cake tin with baking paper. Grease the sides with butter. Dust the sides and base with cocoa powder.

3 Melt 125g of butter and the dark chocolate in a bowl over a pot of boiling water.

4 Cream the sugar and remaining butter for 3-5min until pale and fluffy. Mix in the vanilla extract.

5 In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs and whipping cream until smooth.

6 Add half of this egg-cream mixture, 90g plain flour and 90g self-raising flour into the sugar-butter mixture. Mix well.

7 Add the remaining egg-cream mixture and flour, and mix well.

8 Add the melted butter-chocolate mixture and mix for 3min, until the batter is smooth.

9 Pour the batter into the cake tin and bake for 25-30min, until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

10 Cool the cake to room temperature. Slice it into five equal layers.

11 To make the chocolate frosting, stir and melt the chocolate and whipping cream in a bowl over a pot of simmering hot water.

12 Add the butter and honey to the melted chocolate and stir until smooth. Leave to cool for 45min.

13 Frost each cake layer and stack them. Finish off by frosting the sides of the cake.

Tip: Use an electric whisk or mixer for all the mixing in this recipe. Add 1-2 drops of red food colouring to the cake batter to give the cake a richer colour.

Photography: Winston Chuang, Art direction & styling: Nikki Ho

This article was originally published in Simply Her Apr 2012.