Chocolate swirl cream cake

Preparation time: 25 mins | Cooking time: 60 mins

It was my younger son's birthday. He is very choosy when it comes to food. He likes cake but there are conditions behind it. :-) like...no icing, no fruits or nuts etc. I thought of taking the opportunity to make a cream topping cake. I didn't have any prior experience but then thought..."what the hell....there is always a first time :-)". The decorations are as per his liking. I only wrote his short name on the cake as I wasn't so sure I could write all of it, instead I used the 'happy birthday' candles. In the end result wasn't that bad as I thought. My son was very happy which is by far the greatest compliment. :-)

Ingredients
Self raising flour-300gms
Butter-300gms
Sugar-300gms
Eggs-6
Vanilla essence-2tsp
Baking powder-2tsp
Cocoa powder-2tsp
Canned pineapple-small tin
Heavy cream-300ml.

Method
Put the baking tin onto a sheet of greaseproof paper and draw around it. Cut out the shape and grease the tin with a little butter, then put the cut paper inside the tin. Grease the paper and set the oven to 180C/350F or gas mark 4. Sift the flour and baking powder into a mixing bowl. Add the butter, sugar and eggs to the bowl and mix until they are thick and creamy. Add the vanilla essence and mix well. Remove 6 tbsp of batter and place in a smaller bowl. Pour the remaining batter into the tin. Add the cocoa powder into the reserved batter and stir well with a fork. Drop the chocolate mixture in spoonfuls randomly onto the batter in the tin and using a knife swirl the chocolate mixture through the cake mix. Put the tin in the oven and bake the cake for 40-50 minutes. When the cake is cooked, take it out of the oven and leave it in the tin for 5 minutes. Turn the cake out and peel off the greaseproof paper, turn the cake over and leave it to cool.



Cut the cake in half horizontally. Drain pineapples and reserve the syrup. Beat cream in a bowl until stiff. Put the bottom cake layer on a board. Spoon the syrup over the layer (just to make it a little wet), spread the cream, now place the pineapple pieces to form a layer. Then place the other half on top. Spread a layer of whipped cream over top layer and the sides of the cake. Chill until ready to serve.

Note: Dip the knife in hot water at regular intervals while spreading the cream.