Henry's chocolate chip cake

Yesterday I made a cake I had made several times before but wanted to try a variation of, a chocolate chip cake.  You have to be careful with chocolate chip cakes that the chips don't all end up as a congealed layer on the bottom of the cake.  This one gets round it by using a higher proportion of flour and also ground almonds.  The thicker density helps prevent the chips from sinking.  I have made this cake many times with no problems but on this occasion I decided to try making it with Cadbury Twirl Bites in place of the chocolate chips.
It didn't work entirely.  The cake was delicious and it has a fine crumb and a lovely texture but Cadbury milk chocolate had too high a sugar content and the Twirl bites caramellised into sticky lumps tasted good but was not the effect I was looking for.  Here's the recipe, I don't know why its called Henry's, the reason is lost in my past somewhere.

 

HENRY'S CHOCOLATE CHIP CAKE

 

• 6oz softened butter
• 6oz caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 8oz self raising flour
• 4oz chocolate chips
• 2oz ground almonds
• 2 tbsp milk

Preheat the oven to Gas 4/180C/350F
Grease and line your cake tin.  I usually make this in a loaf tin because I hate lining tins and I've got some paper loaf tin liners.
Cream the butter and sugar till light and fluffy.  I saw Mary Berry on tv recently say you shoud cream them till they're so light they have a mousse like texture to stop the mixture curdling when you add the eggs.  She was right so aim for that.
Add the eggs one at a time, adding two tbsp flour with the last two and beating on high speed
Fold in remaining flour, chocolate chips and almonds with a metal spoon.
Fold in the milk to achieve a soft dropping consistency
Place in the tin and bake for just over an hour till it looks like this

Leave it in the tin to cool for an hour or until cold, this is important.  It stops the cake breaking it up when you take it out and also allows the chocolate chips to reconsolidate.
On this occasion I topped it with a thin layer of Cadbury Dairy Milk.  I used a 120g bar but feel free to use more for a thicker layer.  A word of warning though.  I usually melt chocolate in the microwave with no problems but due to that high level of sugar I mentioned the Cadbury chocolate burned.  You can see a couple of little charred spots in the top picture.  It didn't adversely affect the taste though.  Just do it the traditional way over a pan of hot water!