Chocolate Cake for Breakfast: A Tender Cocoa Sponge With Chocolate Buttercream, for Halloween Weekend

For the buttercream:

• 280 g unsalted butter, very soft
• 360 g icing sugar, sifted
• 70 g unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted
• 100 ml whole milk, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 pinch of fine salt

Method

1. Heat the oven to 175 C (350 F). Grease two 23 cm round cake tins and line the bases with baking paper.
2. In a large bowl whisk the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt until no lumps of cocoa remain.
3. Add the eggs, milk, oil and vanilla. Beat with a whisk or an electric mixer on medium speed for 2 minutes, until smooth.
4. Stir in the boiling water or hot coffee. The batter will be very thin; that is correct.
5. Divide the batter between the tins. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until a skewer in the centre comes out clean and the tops spring back lightly.
6. Cool the cakes in their tins for 10 minutes, then turn them out onto a wire rack and let them cool completely, about 45 minutes. Frosting a warm cake melts the buttercream.
7. For the buttercream, beat the butter for 3 minutes until pale and creamy. Add the icing sugar and cocoa in three batches on low speed, then add the milk, vanilla and salt and beat for 3 minutes on medium until light and fluffy.
8. Place one layer on a plate, spread with about a third of the buttercream, set the second layer on top, then cover the top and sides with the rest. Dust with a little cocoa.

Tips, swaps and storage

Use cocoa powder, not drinking chocolate, which is sweetened and thin in flavour. Hot coffee in place of the water will not make the cake taste of coffee, only deeper. If the buttercream looks stiff, add milk a teaspoon at a time; if it looks loose, chill it for 15 minutes and re-beat.

The cake keeps, covered, for two days at room temperature and up to five days in the fridge; bring slices to room temperature before eating. Unfrosted layers freeze well, wrapped tightly, for up to two months. For a witchy finish, add a ring of dark berries or a scatter of edible gold, as the film's cake did with gold-sprayed cherries.

The trend will fade with the first of November, but the cake will not. It is a good one to know, whether the occasion is a film, a birthday or a Saturday morning with a pot of coffee.