Chocolate-date cake with strawberries and cream


Frú Hnallþóra: So delicious!
Originally uploaded by Netla.

A friend of mine made this cake for her son's birthday party in August.

Here's the recipe:

Chocolate-date cake with strawberries

The most common way of serving this kind of cake is with bananas, but since the photo is of one with strawberries, I am putting strawberries into the recipe instead.

4 eggs
150 g sugar
50 g flour
1 tsp baking powder
100 g dark (semi-sweet is best) chocolate
100 g dates

Whip together eggs and sugar until light and fluffy. Add sifted flour and baking powder by the spoonful until fully mixed. Chop chocolate and dated (raisin-sized pieces are good) and fold into batter.

Line two round baking tins (approx. 22 cm in diameter) with baking paper and put in the dough. Level dough with a spatula. Bake at 180°C on the middle rack of the oven for 15-20 minutes, or until firm when poked gently with a finger.

Filling and decoration:
1 small or medium box fresh strawberries (depending on how much decorating you plan to do) OR 1 small can strawberries in syrup OR 2 bananas
250 ml cream

Whip the cream stiff. Mash a handful of strawberries or one banana and fold into the whipped cream. Put between the layers of the cake. Decorate the cake with the remaining strawberries or banana (sliced). It's good to dip banana slices into lemon juice to prevent them from going brown.

Some prefer to smother the cake in frosting:
3 egg yolks
4 tbs icing sugar
100 g dark chocolate

Whip together the egg yolks and icing sugar. Melt the chocolate over a water bath and mix well into egg/sugar mixture. Fold in 2-3 tbs of whipped cream.
Frost one half of the cake with about 1/3 of this icing before adding the cream. Then cover the cake with it and decorate with strawberries or banana slices.
My friend adds a bit of melted chocolate as well.

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