My take on Lorraine Pascale's "I can't believe you made that 'chocolate cake' "

Those that know me know that I love baking (and cooking), so I love trying out recipes in my house, and I get super excited when they come out great such as this one did (haha even if I do say so myself).

I came across this recipe by Lorraine Pascale on Food Network one day and I thought to myself "this is worth a try". I tweaked this recipe a bit as you'll see below.

Ingredients:

200g Wooden spoon white margarine (the original recipe calls for butter, but hey cost of living didn't allow)

200g caster sugar

4 Eggs

140g flour

60g cocoa powder

2 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

375g D'licious Wafer Rolls (the original recipe calls for chocolate cigarillos)

Fresh strawberries sliced

For the buttercream:

250g wooden spoon margarine

500g icing sugar

100g dark chocolate (melted)

For the decoration I just quartered some strawberries and arranged them as seen in the picture.

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 180 C

2. Grease a 20cm round cake tin ( I used my homemade pan greaser - story for another day)

3. Cream together the margarine and sugar in a bowl until it begins to go pale. Add half of the eggs, half of the flour and mix well. Add the rest of the eggs, flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking powder and beat for a minute or two until the mixture is uniform.

4. Place mixture into your greased cake tin and bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.

5. While your cake is cooling, prepare the buttercream by beating the margarine and icing sugar in a bowl until fluffy. Add the cooled melted chocolate to this mixture and whisk for another two minutes.

6. Once the cake is completely cool, remove it from the tin and carefully cut the top flat with a large serrated knife.

7. Turn the cake upside down on a 20cm cake board so that the bottom now becomes a nice flat top. Split the cake horizontally and sandwich the top and bottom together with a thin layer of buttercream. Put a layer of your sliced strawberries, arranging them on top of the thin layer of buttercream.

8. Spread half of the remaining buttercream all over the top and sides of the cake, making it as smooth as possible. (here the recipe calls for two layers of buttercream to cover the cake - I just did one, I prefer my cakes lightly coated with buttercream)

9. Gently push the wafer rolls vertically onto the sides of the cake, positioning them as straight as possible and making sure they touch the bottom.

Lastly, place your quartered strawberries, arranging them decoratively. Add dusting of icing sugar and ENJOY!!!

Try it and let me know how yours came out.......