Children's chocolate marble birthday cake

A simple vanilla and chocolate marble sponge base with a soft sweet chocolate decoration. Easy to make and kids love it.

Cake mixture

Line base and sides of the cake tin with greaseproof paper.

Place caster sugar and margarine into mixer. Mix until smooth and creamy. Sift the self-raising flour into separate bowl. Break an egg over the sugar and margarine mixture, add two tablespoons of sifted flour and beat in. Repeat until for all three eggs.

Add any remaining flour mixture and beat in. Add a little milk if the mixture is too stiff. Sift Cocoa powder into separate bowl. Spoon three-quarters of mixture into lined baking tray. In to the remaining (not in the cake tin) mixture mix in the three heaped tablespoons of Cocoa powder.

Spread chocolate mixture onto sponge mixture and mix in with skewer to give a marbled effect.

Place in middle of preheated oven (180°C, 350°F, Gas Mark 4) for about 40 minutes. Do not to open oven door until cake has fully risen - unless you want a sunken cake! Test with a warm skewer to see that the cake is cooked in the centre. Leave in the baking tray to cool then turn out.

Decoration

Have the chocolate cake ready. Make the icing by beating the butter with the sieved icing sugar. Dissolve the cocoa in a tablespoon of boiling water and mix until the mixture is stiff. Spread the bottom of the cake (so that the number is the right way around) with butter icing. Spread butter icing all over the sides and lift it on to a plate or cake board. Sprinkle the icing plentifully with 'Hundreds and Thousands' or Smarties.

An alternative chocolate decoration is to simply melt a 500 gram bar of milk chocolate in a Pyrex dish by placing it over a saucepan of very hot (not boiling) water. Break the chocolate into small pieces and stir with a wooden spoon until soft. Pour and spread the mixture over the cake and leave to set. If however, you want to decorate the icing do so before the chocolate sets hard.