Easter bake: festive style chocolate cake

Jazz up your festive weekend with a little cake for the kids to enjoy make or just eat.

Ingredients :

• 150ml sunflower oil plus extra for the tin

• 165g golden caster sugar

• 2 eggs

• 150ml milk

• 165g self-raising flour

• 3 tbsp cocoa powder

• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

  For the chocolate fudge icing

• 100g milk or dark chocolate

• chopped (either a chocolate bar or Easter egg, broken up)

• 100g butter softened

• 100g icing sugar100g Easter treats (chocolate eggs, sweets, chocolate bar pieces)

Recipe

• step 1

• Heat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Oil and line a traybake tin, about 20 x 30cm, and 5cm deep. Put the oil, sugar, eggs and milk in a bowl and whisk until well combined. Sieve over the flour, cocoa and bicarb, and stir briefly until combined. Pour the mixture into the tin, and bake for 20-25 mins until the cake is well risen and springs back when pressed. Transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

• step 2

  Melt the chocolate in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water, ensuring the bowl doesn't touch the water, or in short blasts in the microwave until melted. Leave to cool for a few minutes.

• step 3

  Beat the butter and icing sugar together until pale and fluffy, then drizzle in the chocolate and beat again until smooth and uniform in colour. Swirl the icing over the top of the cake, with a few peaks and swirls to decorate. Scatter with the Easter treats to serve.

About the author

Emma studied food and nutrition before focusing on furniture and design history at university in Manchester.

With over 20 years in senior product design and communications roles, she has ghostwritten for publications including The Times, Business Insider and The Financial Times.

In 2024, she and her husband, Craig, founded Maison d'Aquitaine to provide sustainably made kitchens for traditional French homes. They have lived in France with their children since 2011.

Emma is a vegetarian at home and a pescetarian in French restaurants! In her spare time, she works with the Dordogne-based animal charity, Phoenix Association.