Best Chocolate Cake Tray Bake Recipe - All Kitchen Colours (2024)

Leave all your refrigerated ingredients at room temperature for 1 hour before baking.

Heat up the oven to 160 C and line the tray with a baking paper (my tray has 39 x 27 cm).

Beat margarine, eggs and sugar together until smooth.

Continue mixing while adding gradually buttermilk.

Sif dry ingredients – flour, soda and cocoa all into a separate bowl.

Add the dry mix into the wet mixture and gently fold together. (I was impatient and used a hand mixer on low speed for a moment to get rid of lumps and didn’t see any negative effect on the sponge.)

Spread evenly onto the tray.

Bake for approximately 35 minutes or until the edges begin to shrink and the sponge springs back or your testing tool is clean when you insert it into the sponge.

Let the sponge completely cool down before decorating.

Whisk the butter and sugar together first.

Beat the curd cheese in a separate bowl (Polish curd cheese is a bit lumpy, whisking it helps to break the lumps).

Add the butter mix to the curd cheese in a few steps, whisk properly each time (it works better for me in this order and the mix doesn’t curdle).

Whip the double cream.

If you are adding xantham gum (for the firmer hold), whisk less than ⅛ teaspoon xantham gum with ½ teaspoon of caster sugar and a splash of double cream first. Once it starts thickening up add the additional double cream and continue whisking until light and fluffy. Don’t over whisk otherwise you will make butter instead of whipped cream.

Gently fold the whipped cream to the curd cheese/butter mixture.

Spread the filling over the sponge and leave in a cool place while you are preparing the chocolate icing.

For the chocolate icing, melt the dark and milk chocolate with double cream and lard over a gentle heat (water bath works great for melting chocolate). Stir occasionally until smooth.

Spread over the curd cheese filling to cover the whole surface in an even layer.

If you want to make the feathered icing decoration at the top as you can see in the pictures you need to melt the white chocolate chips in a separate pot.

Once melted spoon it into a paper piping bag, cut off the tip and pipe evenly in lines over the dark chocolate base. Before the chocolate sets draw across the lines in one direction and then the other. Here is a nice example “How to do feather icing” by Baked Club.

Tip: Cutting the cake can be tricky once the chocolate icing sets as the chocolate often crack under the knife. Cutting thought chocolate with a warm knife makes a big difference. I put my knife under hot tap water, dry it and quickly make a few cuts. I don’t rush and repeat this step quite a few times if I want to have a clean, immaculate looking portions.