Chocolate Cake with Strawberries and Cream Cheese Icing

This is a slightly unusual combination – you might expect vanilla sponge with strawberries and cream, or chocolate sponge with chocolate icing and strawberries.

My brother had his birthday a couple of weeks ago and I wanted to make him a cake when he came to visit. When I asked what he might like he said chocolate, but not too much chocolate (so not chocolate sponge with chocolate icing) and that strawberries were a good idea. But he really doesn’t like cream so strawberries and cream were out.

I thought chocolate cake, vanilla buttercream and strawberries might seem a bit “heavy” so we settled on a cream cheese icing instead.

Slices of cake!

I used a basic chocolate Victoria sponge mix for the cake:

Recipe

Ingredients

225g butter

225g caster sugar

4 eggs

160g SR flour

65g cocoa powder

Method

Grease two 8″ sandwich tins and line the bases. Set the oven to 175°C.

Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and creamy.

Add the eggs, one at a time.

Sieve the flour and cocoa powder together and fold into the butter mixture.

Divide equally between the cake tins and bake for around 20-25 minutes or until springy to the touch.

Allow to cool on a wire rack.

Cream Cheese Icing: I didn’t use a lot of icing as it is quite rich so if you like a lot you may need to increase the quantity.

Ingredients

240g icing sugar

40g butter

100g cream cheese

Method

Beat the icing sugar and butter together until it is creamy and well mixed.

Add the cream cheese and beat until incorporated.

Assembling the Cake

Put a layer of icing on the bottom half of the cake and cover with sliced strawberries. It is a good idea to put a blob of icing on the bottom of the second layer as this will help anchor it and stop it sliding around when you cut the cake.

Place the second cake on top and spread another layer of icing over it. Decorate with whole or half strawberries and some chocolate shavings.

Dessert, birthday cake, afternoon tea: you choose!

Belated Happy Birthday Steven!

Categories: Baking, Birthday cakes, Cakes, Chocolate, Desserts, Fruit, Recipes

Tags: baking, birthday, birthday cake, cake, cream cheese, dessert, frosting, fruit, icing, recipe, sponge, strawberries, Victoria sponge