Mary Berry's "Can't go wrong chocolate cake"... it's true!

My copy of Mary Berry's "Fast Cakes" arrived last week and I've been dying to make some things from it since. Mum has a lot of bake sales going on at the charity she works for so I was intrigued to see if any of these could become cost-effective, quick bake sale staples.

I decided to start with the "Can't go Wrong" chocolate cake mainly because of the name. It lived up to it. However, what I didn't take into account was the pre-prep... because that most certainly can.

I spent 40 minutes turning my room over looking for the tin of golden syrup I was 100% certain I'd bought, even going through all my receipts to check that I hadn't just meant to buy it and somehow forgotten... but there it was, in black and white. So where the bloody hell had it got to?

It was eventually solved when I called my boyfriend, who had visited last weekend, to ask if he remembered seeing it. He reminded me that we'd used it to prop open my broken sash window when we were making waffles.

Oh, yeah. Obviously.

The next problem came when I opened up my (second-hand, original edition) copy of the book, smoothed it open, and the first 50 or so pages promptly fell out. Luckily they all fell out in one lump, but still not a great start.

Once the cake was being made, however, it was an absolute dream. It took less than 10 minutes to get it into the pan and into the oven. The original recipe calls for 2 x 8 inch sandwich tin, but I only own 1 x 7 inch tin... but luckily Mary Berry had included some useful conversions, which basically concluded that what fits into 2 x 8 inch tins will fit into 3 x 7 inch tins... and I've always fancied trying to make a triple layer cake!

It was very forgiving. I got the temperature wrong for the first 10 minutes of the first layer - no problem. I had to leave the mixture to stand for an hour because I had to cook each layer separately - no problem. I managed to get the cake out, without even a hint of sticking, the moment it came out of the oven so I could reuse the tin immediately - that was a real novelty to me after getting used to trying to slide things out of my nightmarish 9 inch silicone tin!

A note on icing, however... do wait until the cake is completely cool. Also, like it says in the recipe, wait until you've taken it off the heat and it's thickened up a bit. I couldn't wait, as I had a lecture to get to, and as a result my cake tried to imitate the Leaning Tower every time I turned my back until it had set... However, in the end, it was alright. Not perfectly straight, but straight enough. I actually quite like how it looked because it just reminds me of something you would see at a school bake sale, something a little charmingly slapdash. A cake that doesn't take itself too seriously until you take a bite and realise that, despite the fact that you just bung everything in and whisk it, it's somehow incredibly light.

It's bizzare when, completely by chance, you stumble upon a recipe that takes you back to your childhood. The moment I took a bite of this cake I was transported back to being 7 or 8 years old, at my friend's house, having a piece of cake that either his Mum or Nan had made - I sadly can't remember that part. We had this cake quite often, and as soon as I took my bite today the taste and the texture brought the memories flooding back. It was a very nice moment. 

Update: Upon returning to the kitchen around 2 hours after leaving the cake in there for the people on my corridor, I found that 3/4 of it had already gone! I think that even breaks the Dulce de Leche brownies' record (5 hours for 9 pieces).

Mary Berry's "Can't Go Wrong" Chocolate Cake


I've slightly adapted the original recipe here to fit in 7 inch sandwich tins instead of 8 inch, as that's what I had. The original recipe can be found in many places, such as here, or in her book "Fast Cakes" which can be picked up for a few quid. I've lifted the cooking times and oven temps from her victoria sandwich recipe, which used the 7 inch tins - our oven is usually slow but I found that, for once, the lower end of the spectrum was best for me, so you might want to check it after even less than the alloted time if your oven is a bit fast! I also scaled up the icing recipe slightly to account for the fact you have to sandwich an extra layer in - I think I ended up with marginally too much but it would probably be a good amount if you did let it firm up, as it would be thicker (and harder to spread).

For the Cake
6.5oz (190g) plain flour
2 level tablespoons cocoa
1 level teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 level teaspoon baking powder
5oz (150g) caster sugar
2 tablespoons golden syrup
2 eggs, beaten
0.25 pint (150ml) salad, vegetable or corn oil
0.25 pint (150ml) milk


For the Icing
75g butter
6 tbsp cocoa, sieved
3 tbsp milk
225g icing sugar

To make the cake

1. Grease and line a 7 inch sandwich tin (or more if you have them - you'll be doing 3 layers).
2. Heat the oven to 350F, 180C, Gas Mark 4.
3. Sift the dry ingredients into a large bowl.
4. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl.
5. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients.
6. Add the syrup, eggs, oil and milk.
7. Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes, until it springs back when lightly pressed. 
8. Turn out onto a wire rack - you don't have to wait for it to cool -  and peel off the baking paper. There's no need to wait for it to cool before doing this, it comes straight off. I don't have a wire rack so just piled the layers on top of each other on a plate as they came out.
9. NOW leave the cakes to cool for as long as possible, preferably until they really are cool... 

To make the icing

1. Melt the butter in a small pan, sift in the cocoa, stir to blend and cook gently for 1 minute.
2. Sift in the icing sugar and add the milk.
3. Remove from the heat and mix very well.
4. Now leave it to one side, stirring it occasionally, until the icing thickens (I didn't have time to do this and wish I had).
5. Sandwich the cakes together then put the remainder of the icing on top.