Mary Berry has shared a range of dessert recipes over many years in the food industry – both easy and slightly more complicated to follow. When it comes to her chocolate traybake recipe, it was very simple to make, even the topping. Mary Berry’s chocolate traybake is topped with a milk chocolate ganache feathered with white chocolate.
What stood out about this cake was how moist the sponge was. This was down to the apricot jam Mary Berry recommends you add just as the cake is cooling. The apricot taste is very subtle; it’s merely there to help capture and hold on to liquid. This cake kept well for a week before it started to dry out.
Ingredients
For the sponge
50g of cocoa powder
Six tablespoons of boiling water
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100g of soft butter or baking spread
275g of caster sugar
Three large eggs
125ml of milk
175g of self-raising flour
One teaspoon of baking powder
For the topping
Three to four tablespoons of apricot jam warmed and sieved
100ml of double cream
200g of milk chocolate
100g of white chocolate
Method
I preheated the oven to 160C Fan/180C/Gas Mark 4 before greasing and lining a 12-by-9-inch tin with butter and grease-proof paper.
To make the sponge, I added the cocoa powder to a large bowl with boiling water and mixed it until it was smooth.
I then added the butter and beat this into the cocoa until smooth before adding the remaining cake ingredients. I used a hand-held mixer to combine it all, but you can also just use a wooden spoon.
After, I poured the mixture into the tin, spreading it out evenly and baked it in the preheated oven for about 30 minutes.
You’ll know when the cake is ready when it’s well-risen, just firm to the touch and shrinking away from the sides of the tin.
The cake needed to be left to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack and removing the paper. At this point, I used a pastry brush to brush the top of the cake with apricot jam and left it to cool completely.
Moving onto the ganache, I warmed the cream in a small pan until hot, then added the milk chocolate and stirred until completely melted and smooth. Make sure not to overheat it, or the ganache will end up grainy instead of smooth.
I left the ganache to cool a little so it could turn into a thick pouring consistency before adding on top of the cake. Spread out with a palette knife to cover the cake completely.
To finish it, I melted the white chocolate in the microwave for 30 seconds, then in two 15-second increments, before transferring it to a sandwich bag and piping on lines down the cake.
Using a cocktail stick, I dragged through the white chocolate in opposite directions across the cake to give a feathered effect.