Chocolate Birthday Cake

So I got a cookbook for my birthday at work a couple of years ago - the GoodFood cookbook, to be precise. When it came time for my coworker's birthday, I thought it would be a nice touch to make a cake from the book. But little did I know that my baking skills were not quite up to the level required. This cake is a bastardization of the chocolate curl cake in the book - there was absolutely no way I was going to be trimming the cake with chocolate curls and stripes - so what I ended up with was the messy cake above (but it still tasted pretty nice, though it could have been more moist...)

Chocolate Birthday Cake
Adapted from the chocolate curl cake recipe in the GoodFood cookbook

Ingredients

For the cake:
200g self-raising flour
25g cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
200g caster sugar
200g butter, softened
4 eggs
1 tbsp milk
6 tbsp apricot jam, warmed (I used strawberry as it was what I had on hand)
Sprinkles or whatever else you want to decorate with

For the chocolate cream:
150g bar dark chocolate
142ml tub double cream

Method

1. Heat oven to 180C/160C fan. Grease a deep  round 20 cm cake tin. Beat the flour, cocoa, baking powder, sugar, butter and eggs together until everything is mixed, then stir in the milk.

2. Spoon into the tin, level the top, then bake for 45-50 minutes. Leave in the tin for 5 minutes, then turn out and cool on a wire rack.

3. Split the cake in half and sandwich back together with half the jam. Brush the tops and sides with the remaining jam.

4. For the chocolate cream, break up the chocolate. Bring the cream almost to the boil, then, off the heat, stir in the chocolate until smooth. Cool until spreadable, then spread over the top and sides of the cake. Add sprinkles or decorations if using.