Comfort Food: Chocolate Cake with Berries & Cream Filling

I made a sponge cake yesterday, following a recipe from my mixer's cookbook...and it was not light and airy, I found it too dense. I filled it with strawberries & cream and dusted the top with some icing sugar and that's it.

Since I wasn't so happy with it, I searched for some recipes, compared them, and came up with below:


Chocolate Cake with Berries & Cream Filling


Chocolate Sponge Cake
6 eggs at room temp
1 cup granulated or caster sugar
1 cup flour
1/2 cup of cocoa (I like it dark and bitter, you can use less)
1/3 cup (block) butter (or 2/3 stick)
2 T vanilla


Preheat oven at 180C. Grease a 9" springform pan and line the bottom with waxed paper.

Put the eggs and sugar in the mixer. Using the balloon whisk, beat the eggs and sugar until pale and the whisk leaves a trail when removed.

Sift the flour and cocoa. Gently fold in to the egg mixture.

Mix the butter and vanilla. Gently fold in.

Pour into a springform pan. Bake for 30 to 35 mins, or until the edges started to separate from the pan.

Cool on top of a wire rack. While cooling, prepare the berries & cream filling.




Berries & Cream Filling (approx quantities)
400 mL whipping cream + 2 T sugar
1/2 cup of raspberry and/or cranberry puree
200g strawberries, cut into small chunks (about 1/4 inch or smaller), mixed with 2 T sugar

Whip the cream until soft peaks form. Add the berry puree, and whip till the mixture holds its shape. With a wooden spoon, mix in the strawberries.

Chocolate-Coffee Frosting (approx quantities)
1/2 block butter, room temp
3/4 to 1 cup cocoa
2 to 3 cups of icing sugar
2 shots espresso
6 T whipping cream

Mix the butter until creamy. Beat in the 3/4 cup cocoa until well-mixed.

Beat in 2 cups of icing sugar.

Beat in the espresso.

Now, according to your taste, add more cocoa or icing sugar.

Beat in whipping cream, 1 tablespoon at a time, until spreading consistency.

Arranging the cake

Well, I wasn't really much of a cake decorator, so I did it in a very simple way.

First, cut the sponge cake into three horizontally using a serrated knife. I heard that there is a cake leveler/cutter that I can use for this and I'll try to get one next week as it's a nightmare for me to cut the cake evenly!

Slather the berries and cream filling in between the sponge cakes. Since I wasn't able to cut the cake evenly, I have to make adjustments on the filling height to make it even-ish in the end.

Frost the cake with the chocolate-coffee frosting. The best way to do this is to first spread a thin layer all over, then spread a thick layer. Then you can use an icing comb or spatula to make some patterns.

After arranging the cake, put in the fridge for at least 2 hours so it has time to set. Serve and enjoy!