Quadruple Chocolate Cake

Knowing that I have one or two chocoholics amongst my regular readers (you know who you are), I thought I'd share this recipe from my latest baking session for the village 'pop-up' café. Just in case you are wondering this cake is not named for the bypass you might feel you'd need after eating it but because of the four choccy-factors that go into it: cocoa to make the cake; chocolate chips to fold into it; a chocolate syrup to drench it once it's out of the oven and dark chocolate shards to top it before serving. It's a Nigella Lawson creation with a few personal tweaks to give it a little more 'body'. It's easy peasy and looks good but I'll have to leave it to others to let me know how it tastes (see later for verdict).

Use the best quality chocolate possible and never never ever use milk chocolate

Ingredients  
                                       

For the cake

• 200 grams plain flour
• ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 50 grams cocoa powder
• 275 grams golden caster sugar
• 175 grams soft unsalted butter
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 80 ml sour cream
• 125 ml boiling water
• 175 grams dark chocolate chips 

For the syrup and topping

• 1 teaspoon cocoa powder
• 125 ml water 
• 50 grams golden caster sugar
• 50 grams dark muscovado sugar
• 25 grams dark chocolate (from a bar)                           

Method

1. Take whatever you need out of the fridge in good time for all ingredients to come to room temperature.
2. Preheat the oven 170°C/325ºF and line a 2lb loaf tin with greased paper (I always use a preformed liner as it's easier).
3. And now the incredibly difficult, but extremely skilful, job of assembling the ingredients. Put the flour, bicarb, cocoa, sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla and sour cream into your Kenwood bowl (other makes of food processor are available) and whisk to a smooth, satiny brown batter. Scrape down the sides with a rubber spatula and whisk again while pouring the boiling water into the mixture. Switch off and then fold in the chocolate chips.

   

   Ready for the oven

4. Scrape the sides again and pour this unctuous batter (it really is quite liquid) into the prepared loaf tin and slide into the oven on a baking tray. Cook for about 1 hour. When it's ready, the loaf will be risen and cracked down the middle. A skewer will come out pretty clean but this should be a moist cake so a bit of stickiness is OK. Indeed, a bit of stickiness should be the cause of unbounded glee.

   

   After baking and poking holes in it with a skewer. It sinks a little as it cools.

5. Not long before the cake is due out of the oven - say when it's had about 50 minutes - put the syrup ingredients of cocoa, water and sugar into a small saucepan and boil for around 5 minutes. What you are aiming for is something with a nice coating syrupy consistency.
6. Take the cake out of the oven and put it on a cooling rack and, still in its tin, pierce here and there with a skewer. Then pour the syrup as evenly as possible, which is not very, over the surface of the cake. It will run to the sides of the tin, but some will have been absorbed in the middle. I use a silicon pastry 'brush' to make certain of a good coverage.

   

   Smothered in the chocolate syrup which looks great but makes getting it out of the tin a nightmare. Note to self: if I make it again, put some longer strips of greaseproof paper under it to help lift it out

7. But it does come out eventually and this is best done after the cake has become completely cold. It's too fragile to handle safely when it's warm.

   

   All syrupped and waiting for the topping 

8. And now for the topping. My original aim was to have curls but it didn't work out like that, probably because I was using an 85% cocoa bar which is hard. A vegetable peeler is ideal for scraping and producing reasonable size crumbs for sprinkling on the top of the cake. To help adhesion, I brushed a little honey on the surface before the topping.

   

   Bedecked in chocolate scrapings and ready for munching

And the verdict of the punters? Nice but very rich. A real treat for the discerning chocolate lover but you don't need a big piece of it. It would make a great pudding with a chocolate sauce or sour cream, perhaps.