Instructions

1. Turn on your oven to 160°C
2. Prepare the baking tin (27cm diam.) by rubbing all over with small knob of butter and then dusting lightly with flour.
3. Prepare the robot with a non-cutting blade
4. Sift together flour & baking agent -- if using wholemeal flour, first sift & then add the chaff which remains behind in the sieve.
5. Spoon into your robot along with any flavouring eg. cinnamon, vanilla etc.
6. Add the sugar
7. Cut the butter into small pieces, then add to robot.
8. Turn the robot on at half-speed until the butter is mixed with the flour, then increase the speed for about 30 seconds.
9. Break the eggs, one by one, into a cup so that you can check for pieces of shell, before adding each into the flour mixture
10. Turn on the robot full speed until the mixture becomes smooth & slightly shiny. That should take a couple of minutes.
11. At this stage, if you want to add some chocolate chips, throw them into the mixture & turn on the robot for just a few seconds so they mix in evenly.
12. Carefully transfer the mixture to the cake tin, & if the oven has reached temperature, slide on to the top shelf.
13. Cook for about 35 minutes, checking a few minutes before the end of cooking time with a wooden skewer in the cake to see if it comes out dry or moist. If too moist, you may have to extend cooking time a few extra minutes.
14. When cooking time is up, take the cake from the oven and leave it to stand for 5 minutes before turning out onto a cake rack to cool
15. When the cake is cool you can add a little extra interest by slicing it in half horizontally & adding a jam spread in the middle -- or more simply, by just adding a dusting of icing sugar on the top