Cake Time: Chocolate Fudge Cake

Samantha likes chocolate fudge cake. Just chocolate fudge cake. No icing. No messing around.

Which meant I got to have a go at my first (semi) naked cake.

Naked cakes aren't to everyone's taste; some people find them scruffy, plain and unfinished. I, however, find them pretty, simple and rustic. My only concern about them is the drying out of the cake due to there not being an icing barrier around the cake, but as this one was being made and then being eaten almost straight away, it wasn't too much of a worry.

I mean, look how pretty! Left to right: Cloche, Ivy

As my usual chocolate sponge recipe doesn't really count as a chocolate fudge cake, I tested 2 other cake recipes. The first was Nigella's (get the recipes here) and the second was a good ol' BeRo one.

Nigella's chocolate fudge cake is delicious! I whole heartedly recommend you have a go at it because it is scrummy; light, moist, chocolately and yummy. But it was so light that there was no way it could be used to build up a 2 tier cake.

The BeRo recipes also produced a cake that was moist and tasty but had a denser texture which meant it made better building material.

For this cake, the bottom tier was left plain with just some chocolate fudge sauce and a thin layer of buttercream to hold it together. (N.B. This combo is not good in a hot car on a hot day. For real. Nightmare.)

The second tier, on Samantha's Mum's request, was coated in a lovely chocolate buttercream, which added a lovely dimension of colour and texture to the cake.

When it came to decoration we kept it simple with a few flowers and a pop of colour. I was over the moon when I was asked to use red because I think it works so well with chocolate. I also added some black accents (the board) to add a bit of drama. The shot glass was added at their request.

Side line: did you know you can't get a shot glass with '18' on it ANYWHERE! All the card shops in all the world have gone classy; if I'd needed a Martini glass there wouldn't have been an issue.

The whole thing went down a chocolatey treat. It even almost got me a job at the restaurant I was delivering it to. That is until I nearly dropped my car keys on it as we were leaving. Keeping it graceful.

Vicky xx