ELAINE, who runs our Mail Order department and is also a BAKING LEGEND at Hardy's rustles up this cake in just under an hour, 35 minutes preparation and 12 minutes baking time. When it appeared at work last month for its photographic debut, WE ALL dutifully lined up in accordance with social distancing requirements to taste our individually cut slices and then to check in the mirror for chocolate smears. I am afraid that most of us failed the visual test but it was SO GOOD! Enjoy!

Cake Ingredients

6 medium eggs

150g (6oz) caster sugar

120g (5oz) self raising flour (sieved)

30g (1oz) cocoa powder (sieved)

Icing Ingredients

130g (5oz) butter

90ml (6tbsp) fresh semi-skinned milk

50g (2oz) cocoa powder (sieved)

10ml (2tsp) vanilla essence

550g (16oz) icing sugar (sieved)

Equipment

Swiss Roll tin 30.5 x20.5 cm (12 x 8 inch)

Greaseproof paper

Method

Prepare your Swiss Roll tin by lining with grease proof paper, no need for any further greasing. Turn on your oven to Gas Mark 6/ 200 degrees Celsius/ 180 degrees Celsius fan.

Put your eggs and caster sugar into a mixing bowl and whisk with an electric whisk - you can do this with a hand whisk but it will make you arm ache. Whisk until the mixture doubles in volume and is the consistency of soft whipped cream.

Gently fold in the sieved cocoa powder and self raising flour with a wooden spoon. Once they are all combined with no lumps, gently poor into the prepared swiss roll tin.

Bake for approximately 10-12 minutes, or until well risen and firm.

Turn the cake out onto a sugared greaseproof paper sheet (caster sugar is fine), carefully peel off the lining paper and gently roll the cake into the sugared greaseproof paper so that it makes a log shape.

Cut away any crispy edges and leave to cool on a wire cooling rack.

Once completely cool, unroll the cake. Do not worry about the cake splitting as it will be covered up with the icing.

Decoration

Put all the icing ingredients into a mixing bowl then shroud it in a tea towel to stop your kitchen being covered in icing sugar. Mix carefully with an electric whisk until combined. If the consistency is still a bit stiff then you can always add a bit more milk.

Once combined unroll the cake and spread thinly with some of the icing and re-roll. Place the rolled cake on a board that is long enough to take the whole cake - this can be stiff cardboard covered in tin foil. Put icing on the outside of the cake to cover it entirely, don’t worry if you have some mixture over. Once completely covered, add ridges to make it look like a log and top it off with your favourite Christmas cake decorations.

For a printable version - please click here