Traditional Sponge Cake with Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Fudge Cake Sauce

This is my go-to cake whenever I need to whip something up for a friend's birthday. The chocolate sauce is very decadent so is perfectly balanced against this light sponge. Sponge cakes can take a while to perfect and I find the best results are achieved with an electric mixer combined with a lot of practice so roll up those sleeves and get going!

Ingredients:

For the cake:

• 8 oz self raising flour
• 8 oz caster sugar 
• 8 oz olive spread (or butter) 
• 3 eggs

For the chocolate fudge sauce: (recipe fully accredited to Nigella Lawson)

• 125g butter
• 90g dark chocolate plus a bit extra to decorate
• 140g icing sugar

Equipment:

• Electric mixer
• Two round baking tins 

Method:

• Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and grease the two baking trays with a little bit of butter. 
• Weigh out the sugar and butter then cream together in the mixer.
• Weigh out and sieve the flour. Add about 3/4 of the flour to the mixture and mix on a high setting for about a minute. 
• Whisk the eggs then add into the mix along with the rest of the flour. Mix together again on a high setting until everything is combined. The general wisdom is that too much mixing will knock out all the air from the mixture however I find that a final mix on a really high setting for about 30 seconds produces a very light cake. 
• Pour half of the mix into each tin then use the back of a knife to even out the mixture. 
• Bake in the oven for 25 minutes. To test if the cake is done or not push lightly on the top of the cake- if it bounces back up then it is fully cooked. 
• Leave to cool for a good half an hour. Remove the two cakes from the tins and cool a bit more on a wire rack whilst you make the icing.
• Weigh out all the ingredients. Cream together the butter and icing sugar until it has a very light and creamy texture. 
• Place the dark chocolate in a glass bowl over a saucepan of boiling water. Keep the water on a medium heat and stir the chocolate until it starts to melt. Once 3/4 of the chocolate has melted take off the heat and continue to stir until there are no lumps and the chocolate is fully melted. It is important to keep an eye on the heat of the water, keep stirring constantly and to take the chocolate off the heat before it is all melted in order to prevent it from burning. 
• Add the melted chocolate to the icing mixture and mix until the icing is a consistent dark brown colour. Spread half on the top of one of the cakes then place the other cake on top. It is important to ensure the cakes are completely cool before doing this. Spread the rest of the icing on the very top of the cake.
• Decorate! Try grating a line of dark chocolate over the top, scattering some white chocolate buttons over the top or crumbling some ginger biscuits. 
• Keep in an airtight container.