Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325'F. Generously grease a 5-cup fluted or plain tube pan and dust lightly with flour.
2. Sift flour, baking powder and Mixed Spice into a bowl. Add margarine, superfine sugar and eggs.
3. Blend cocoa powder with hot water and add to flour mixture.
4. Beat well with a wooden spoon 2 minutes or 1 minute if using an electric mixer. Turn mixture into prepared pan
5. Bake in preheated oven 1-1/4 hours or until well risen and cake begins to shrink from edges of pan. Carefully turn out cake onto a wire rack and cool.
6. Combine granulated sugar and 2/3 cup water in a saucepan.
7. Add cinnamon and heat gently, stirring to dissolve sugar. Boil 5 minutes. Remove from heat, add rum and discard cinnamon.
8. Place cake on a plate. Spoon syrup over cake and let stand 2 hours. Cover top of cake with almonds
9. Melt chocolate; carefully spoon over cake, spreading to give a smooth even coating.
10. Let stand several hours. Pipe (with a pastry bag) whipped cream around bottom of cake.