Jamaican chocolate cake

Yield: 12 Servings

Ingredients:

1 1/2 c Self-rising flour
1 1/2 ts Baking powder
1 ts Mixed Spice
3/4 c Margarine softened
3/4 c Superfine sugar
3 Eggs
2 tb Unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tb Hot water
1/2 c Granulated sugar
2/3 c Water
2 Cinnamon sticks (2")
1/4 c Dark rum
2 tb Slivered almonds
6 oz Semisweet chocolate

Instructions:

broken -in pieces Whipped cream Preheat oven to 325'F. (165'C.). 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 spooon over cake spreading to give a smooth even coating. Let stand several hours. Pipe (with a pastry bag) whipped cream around bottom of cake.