Home-made birthday cake

katiecoodle

3 cups of SR flour
three quarters of a cup of cocoa
2 cups of sugar
2 tsp baking powder
mix up together.
add 2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 cup oil
1 cup HOT water (careful you don't cook the eggs when you add this!), mix it all up together. It's dead runny - this is normal. In my fan oven I did about an hour on 180.
I did have to cut off the top cos it rose so much. Important: COOL IT IN THE TIN, before you turn it out. I promise you it'll be the moistest tastiest chocolate cake you've tried in ages & you'll keep the recipe!

It'll do at least 24 muffins (alter cooking time accordingly) or 1 large 8" cake, which I then cut in half to buttercream it.

Re the cost yes the actual cake itself was quite cheap but I did go to a cake shop to buy some stuff especially - I bought the icing, one white lot & one red lot. I iced the whole cake with a v thin layer of icing before doing another layer, otherwise the buttercreaming would have been quite messy I thought. I rolled it out using cornflour on the pin & worksurface to stop it sticking. That's why it's so smooth. Also I bought some edible silvery paint to paint the rim & lugs on the drum. Also I bought the board especially for this cake (& candles which aren't shown on the pic). Oh and I did actually buy the buttercream which I'm annoyed with myself for buying as it's so easy but it was on offer......:o

katiecoodle

oh and - the lugs were shaped by hand, the sticks are wooden bbq skewers which I cut to size before painting