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Cost: $ $ $ $ $

Difficulty: • • • • •

Time: 1h00

Serves: 10

Tea Fit for a Queen
When ‘Colonel’ Thomas Blood tried to steal the Crown Jewels, the Tower of London was almost divested of its most precious treasures. Fortunately, his attempt was thwarted and the Tower’s happy triumph over the thief is still commemorated there today with this chocolate-flavoured, blood-red coloured cake. It’s finished with a cream cheese icing and a nod to the historic event–chocolate crowns.

Serves 10

Posted by Ebury Publishing • Published 5th October 2014 • See Ebury Publishing's 80 projects » © 2024 Historic Royal Palaces Enterprises Limited / Ebury Press · Reproduced with permission. · Tea Fit for a Queen by Historic Royal Palaces (Ebury Press, hardback £10) All food photography: Jan Baldwin

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Step 1
Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas 4. Grease and line a deep 16cm round cake tin with greaseproof paper. Whisk together the butter and sugar in a large bowl until soft and creamy. Gradually whisk in the eggs, adding a spoonful of flour if the mixture looks as if it’s curdling.
Step 2
Sift over the remaining flour and cocoa powder. In a separate bowl, mix the buttermilk, bicarbonate of soda, vinegar and food colouring paste together. Add to the flour mixture and fold everything together. Spoon into the tin and bake in the oven for 1 hour 10 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Remove from the tin and leave to cool on a wire rack.
Step 3
For the chocolate crowns, put the chocolate into a heatproof bowl, resting over a pan of simmering water. Make sure the bowl doesn’t touch the water. As soon as all the chocolate has melted, allow to cool for 5 minutes. Cover a baking sheet with baking parchment. Spoon the chocolate into a small plastic bag, snip the very tip of one of the bag’s bottom corners and pipe the shape of crowns by outlining three loops together, a bar underneath and a dot on top of the middle loop for a ‘jewel’. Pipe more crowns than you need so you can choose the best shapes. Leave to set at room temperature.
Step 4
For the icing, beat the butter and icing sugar together, then fold in the cream cheese until smooth. Carefully peel away the paper from the cake and place the cake on a serving plate. Put two large tablespoons of icing aside, then spoon one tablespoon on top of the cake. Smooth it over to cover, then work the mixture around the sides of the cake. Spoon the remaining mixture into a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle and pipe three swirls in the centre of the cake. Push a chocolate crown into each and serve.