In a large bowl, weigh out all your dry ingredients (do it!) and whisk together until they become a lovely chocolate brown.

Mix the milk with the apple cider vinegar and allow to sit for a few minutes. This will form a buttermilk. It might not curdle dramatically but the buttermilk will assist in flavour development, leavening and general fluffiness.

Add all the wet ingredients except the boiling water to the dry. Continue whisking until a smooth batter has formed. It will look moist enough to go into the oven and you might think you don’t need the water. You do! It blooms the cocoa, developing the chocolate flavour. It also creates a beautifully fluffy cake.

Place the butter in a small saucepan and brown very well over a low-medium heat. If you haven’t browned butter before, see the notes section for some handy links.

Once browned, pour the butter into a silicon cake tin and place in the fridge or freezer to set. It will take about 15-20 minutes in the freezer.

Once the butter is completely cooled, break it up and place it in the bowl of your stand mixer. Beat the butter with the whisk attachment until it is light and fluffy, scraping down the sides as necessary. Don’t be fooled – this isn’t a quick process. It will take about 10-15 minutes of beating and scraping down. The mixture should be light and fluffy – not quite white but a very pale beige.

While this is happening, sieve the icing sugar and the cocoa together. I hate sieving so I wouldn’t instruct you to do this unless it was totally necessary for a smooth icing, I promise.

When the butter is ready, turn the speed to low and mix in the icing sugar mixture and the milk. It might form a cloud of icing if you go too quickly. Add the salt and vanilla bean paste (stop the machine to add vanilla or it gets tangled in the beaters) and mix until combined. Taste and adjust if necessary.

Once the cake has completely cooled, it’s time for icing! You can either plonk it all on top or carefully slice the cake in half to ice between each layer. The recipe makes enough icing for a reasonably thin layer between each piece. As the notes suggest, halve it again or even double it if you’re a very thick icing kinda person.

Use an offset spatula or a flat edged knife the spread the icing over the cake. I find it helps to dip your knife in boiling water and dry it off before icing the crummy sections of the cake. The heat makes the knife glide over the top and avoids picking up too many crumbs.

While it’s tempting to keep fiddling with the icing all day, simple is best. Get in there, ice it with confidence and move on, you know?

This cake keeps well in the fridge for a few days.