Chocolate Cake

1½ cup self-rising flour
1 ½ tsp Baking powder

1 tsp Mixed Spice

¾ cup Margarine, softened

¾ cup Superfine sugar

3 Eggs

2 tbsp Unsweetened cocoa powder

2 tbsp Hot water

½ cup Granulated sugar

2/3 cup Water

2 Cinnamon sticks (2")

¼ cup Dark rum

2 tbsp Slivered almonds

6 oz Semisweet chocolate  

Preheat oven to 325'F

Generously grease a 5-cup fluted or plain tube pan and dust lightly with flour. Sift flour, baking powder and Mixed Spice into a bowl. Add margarine, superfine sugar and eggs.

Blend cocoa powder with hot water and add to flour mixture. Beat well with a wooden spoon 2 minutes or 1 minute if using an electric mixer.

Turn mixture into prepared pan. 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.

Combine granulated sugar and 2/3 cup water in a saucepan. Add cinnamon and heat gently, stirring to dissolve sugar. Boil 5 minutes. Remove from heat, add rum and discard cinnamon.

Place cake on a plate. Spoon syrup over cake and let stand 2 hours.  Stud top of cake with almonds.  Melt chocolate; carefully spoon over cake, spreading to give a smooth even coating.

Let stand several hours. Pipe (with a pastry bag) whipped cream around bottom of cake.