Urgent cake help please

[leobeebs]

Ima novice at baking so need some words of wisdom. Would like to make a choc cake for dh birthday. Thought insight decorate it with maltesers .
What is the best kind of butter to get as think this is where my previous cakes have gone wrong. And what do I sandwich between it. Actually if anyone has a tried and tested recipe they could post that would be amazing.

My cakes always look greasy and have air bubble I think holes unit when I take them out. They seem soft then go rock hard quickly. Is this because my ovens too hot or am I just not cut out for this baking malarkey!!

Link

That recipe produces a one layer cake that is quite dense and fudgy. So if you are having trouble with sponges try it. (Though the cooking time is more like 1hour20 so keep checking it.)

As for the greasiness and the bubbles, sounds like you arent creaming the butter with the sugar for long enough.

I use real butter in my sponges (not marg) and I use salted as unsalted is too expensive. Unsalted is advised but I have never had an issue.

Leobeebs, Mary Berry has a good choc cake, i used it on Sun for cupcakes, nice and moist, then to keep it all choccy put ganache in the middle and around the sides, delish!

I second Mary Berry - always good results.

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3019/chocca-mocca-caramel-cake

I used the Lindy's recipe 2 weeks ago for DDs birthday and it's the best recipe I've ever used. Doubled the quantities as wasn't sure how much was needed for novelty tin so had masses of cake and cupcakes which took over a week to polish off. It was still moist and squidgy even then. I forgot to buy butter so used marg and it was still fab.

Isn't it fab 2of! My whole family are raving about it and I have made it for 3 birthdays. I agree, it keeps really well.

It was a mumsnetter that recommended it to me, I forget who now though!

The unsalted butter in either Aldi/Lidl is often quite a bit cheaper than Lurpak in larger supermarkets.

I really think that unless you put good ingredients in, you won't get good results. I always use beurre D'Isigny - either costco or waitrose def sell it, not sure where else. I've tried other brands but never got as good results. I really wouldn't use salted butter. Someone at dh's work brought in a load of cakes made with salted butter, and they were vile!