Susan's Mum's Chocolate Cake (i.e,, My 30th Birthday Cake)

Susan gave me the best birthday present by slaving for hours to make this cake in our little kitchen nook in Germany. She'd called her mom specially to get the recipe--a phone call being a rare occurrence since it was so expensive (usually reserved for pressing culinary questions). We served the cake on the bottom side of a cookie tin lid. Our table was part of something we found out on the side of the road on a junk pick-up morning that we'd covered with a table cloth from my first landlady. We invited so many people, we didn't have near enough chairs for them to sit in! It was a birthday to remember!


Cake
200 g butter
1/4 cp cocoa
6 T hot water
1 cp castor sugar (finely ground granulated sugar)
3/4 cp self-raising flour
2 eggs, separated

Grease sides of 20 cm (8") square tin and line bottom of tin.

Preheat oven to 180C (350F).

Heat butter, cocoa and water in medium pot to melt butter. Stir to combine then add castor sugar and mix well. Add sifted flour and stir gently. Then mix in egg yolks. Beat egg whites to a stiff foam (peaks will fold over when beater is removed) then fold into chocolate mixture. This is a very moist mixture. Pour into prepared tin.Bake for 30-40 minutes or till cooked. Invert tin on rack and leave to cool.

Filling (Chocolate Cream)

300 ml (1 1/4 cp) cream
300 g dark chocolate
2 T brandy

Bring cream to boil. Remove from heat. Add chocolate (broken into pieces) and brandy. Stir till chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth. Pour into bowl and refrigerate till spreadable, stirring now and again. Split cake and fill with filling.

Icing

300 g dark chocolate
125 g unsalted butter
1 T milk

Melt chocolate (broken into pieces) with butter in a bowl over a pot of simmering water. Stir to blend then add milk. Stir till smooth. Cool till thick enough to spread on topa dn sides of cake.