Happy Birthday! Just another excuse to bake

Well today is my birthday and to celebrate i made my own cake, really just an excuse to get in the kitchen and try out a new recipe. Both of these recipes come from Donna Hay's Simple Essentials Chocolate.

I had wanted to make something out of this book for a while now and thought well there is no time like the present.

So on with the baking....

For this basic chocolate cake you will need:
375g of Softened Butter
11/2 Cups of Brown Sugar
3 Eggs
2 Cups of Plain Flours, Sifted
2tsp of Baking Powders
2/3 Cups of Cocoa, Sifted twice
3/4 Cups of Milk

Preheat your oven to 160 C, Place butter and sugar in a bowl and mix using an electric mixer for 8 to 10 minutes. Or until light and fluffy.

Gradually add the eggs and beat well.

Fold through the Flour, Cocoa and Baking Powder.

Pour into a lined 22cm round tin and bake for 1 hour. You can use a skewer to test when it is ready.

At this point I had to stop myself picking at it to see how it tasted!!!

Next ill show you how to make the Chocolate Ganache, I have to say I didn't take many photos of this stage as I had no idea what I was really doing.

For the Chocolate you will need:
375ml of Single Cream
340g of Nestle Dark Chocolate Melts, Chopped

Bring Cream to the boil in a large pot, once boiling remove from the stove and stir in chocolate until melted and smooth.

Allow to cool and spread on cake or between layers of cake.

I really couldnt stopped there, and topped it off with Malteasers and cachous beads.

Not as hard as I thought it was going to be, and the best bit absolutely delicious!