an oldie, but a goodie

You can't really beat the good ol' chocolate cake.  It mightn't be your favourite, but it's almost universally popular and, when undecided on what to bake, this cake is an easy option, every time.  I love carrot cake, but like making chocolate because of how easy it is to do and the fact that it's like a blank canvas - you can decorate it, ice it, dust with sugar, whatever - it's good with almost anything.  

Ordinarily i'd stick with the more typical chocolate icing.  This time however I had Harry, who's six, helping me bake, so it was decided that we'd make three colours of lemon icing.  The cake, when finished, looks like something on acid, but it tastes GREAT!  Lemon icing and cake = surprisingly good!  

The cake itself comes from good ol' Edmonds (another oldie, but a goodie).  Can't beat it. 

175 g butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 3/4 cups sugar
3 eggs (I used 4, 'cause they were small)
1/2 cup cocoa
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup milk

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius.  Grease 22cm round tin.
2. Cream butter, vanilla and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. 
3. Sift together cocoa, flour and baking powder.  Fold into the creamed mixture, alternately with milk. 
4. Pour into prepared tin and bake for 55 minutes (or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into centre). 
5. Leave on wire rack to cool, then ice. 

For the icing we mixed icing sugar (start with about a cup and see how you go - you may need more, depending on how much icing you want) and lemon juice together, adding the juice until the consistency was right (you could use water, orange juice, lime juice).  Then add colouring, if desired.  Ice and decorate.