Chocolate Cake with Mascarpone and White Chocolate Topping

The topping for this dark chocolate cake is a very firm favourite in Louise's family. It has topped and filled many, many cakes, particularly birthday cakes, often decorated with a toy animal or two. If you add a little milk or dark chocolate to the mix you can create a 'muddy field' with a horse galloping across. Double the quantities for the topping if you want to make a large cake, or if you wish to fill and top it.

Ingredients	Cake Base - 150g Dark Chocolate 60% (Chopped), 175g Self-Raising Flour, 1 Teaspoon of Baking Powder, 175g Unsalted Butter (Very Soft), 175g Golden Caster Sugar, 3 Organic Eggs White Chocolate Topping Ingredients -250g White Chocolate (Chopped), 500g Mascarpone Cheese, 150ml Double Cream
Prep Time	15 Minutes
Cooking Time	60 Minutes
Difficulty	Easy
Serves	12

Butter an 18cm round cake tin and dust it lightly with flour
Put the chopped dark chocolate in a heatproof bowl and place in a low oven (about 50c) for about 15 minutes, until melted, stirring gently once or twice. Remove from the oven and set aside. Increase the oven temperature to 180c / Gas Mark 4
Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl. Add the butter, sugar and eggs and mix well with a handful electric beater until completely smooth. Stir in the melted chocolate. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 25 - 30 minutes, until it is well risen and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Reduce the oven temperature to 50c. Leave the cake in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn out on to a wire rack to cool
To prepare the topping, put the white chocolate in a heatproof bowl and place in the oven for about 15 minutes, until melted, stirring occasionally. Keep an eye on it; white chocolate can burn and when it does it goes into small caramelised lumps - delicious, but not for right now!
While the chocolate is melting, whisk the mascarpone and cream together until well combined. Allow the melted chocolate to cool slightly, then stir it into the cream and mascarpone. The resulting topping is stunning - matt white and not too sweet. When the cake is cool, liberally dollop the topping over it

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