Tuesday 25 August 2009

quadruple chocolate cake

quadruple chocolate cake

I was thinking the other day, and I realised that maybe you don't know that much about me.

I mean, you know the basic stuff. You know I'm newly-nineteen, and English, and a student. You know sugar is my major energy source. You know that presentation is not always my strongest point, and I get too excited at the prospect of using a kitchen blowtorch.

Maybe you don't know that in real life, I can be pretty quiet (-I said 'can'. As in, it's not unheard of, if you'll excuse the terrible pun that somehow wandered into that sentence). I like musicals, and playing guitar, and Harry Potter. My favourite piece of punctuation is the semi-colon. I have a small and hairy dog that I miss a painful amount when I'm away at uni. I also have some small and hairy friends - and I have friends other than Sophie, too (sorry, sorry, couldn't resist).

I ate this bit, and have no regrets.

I have friends that I love so much, that sometimes I think that despite all the shit and misery and, I don't know, burnt toast (I hate burning toast. It's cause I love toasting things so much. When I burn something I feel like I've failed at my missive) in the world, everything will end up okay, because how I feel about them cancels out the bad stuff. Probably I don't deserve them - sometimes I look at them and wonder why on earth they're putting up with me - but they make it worth surviving, I think. I think this is probably how people in love feel, except in this case aimed at a wider group of very cool kids, rather than one specific person.

Whenever the world scares me, I remember that they are in it.

...Look at me, getting all serious. You know, toast aside. The toast was metaphorical, anyway.

quadruple chocolate cake

Forget toast, and let's talk about chocolate cake. Chocolate cake is a pretty good expression of love, by all accounts.

This was a gift, so although I've made this recipe in the past I can't talk about this particular cake too extensively. Butttt I did get to nibble the cut-offs, and as ever, this is the ultimate in squidgy, fudgy cake; drizzled, as the best cakes are, with a ribbon of dark and smoky chocolate syrup, until it is so moist that attempts to cut it result in happy collapse and streaks of chocolate on everything you touch for the next half hour. Not that I'm speaking from experience, or anything.

I can only hope that the rest of the cake was as good at the cut-offs I tried, and almost as good as the friend it was for.

with chocolate shavings

Quadruple Chocolate Cake
Slightly adapted from Feast by Nigella Lawson

I know I've complained about Nigella 'in person', but I have no such grudge against her recipes; this is very simple, very moist and squidgy, and right up there with toasters and semi-colons in my scale of approval.

200g (1 2/3 c.)
plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarb of soda
50g
(1/2 c.)
cocoa powder
240g
(1 1/3c.) sugar -
Nigella uses this weight of caster sugar but I went for 1c. (120g) of light brown and 1/3 (50g) of dark muscavado.
175g (1 1/2 sticks)
butter
2 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract
80ml
(1/3 c.)
sour cream
125ml
(1/2 c.)
boiling water
175g
(1 c.) chocolate chips (I used chunks of milk chocolate)

For the syrup:
1 tsp cocoa
125ml
(1/2 c.)
water
80g
(1/2 c.) caster sugar

25g
(1 oz) chocolate, cut into splinters of varying thickness, for garnish

Preheat the oven to 170C. Grease and line a loaf tin (9 1/2" x 4 1/2" x 3" deep - that's 21 x 11cm and 7.5cm deep).

1. Put the flour, bicarb, cocoa, sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla and sour cream into a food processor, and blitz until it’s a smooth, satiny brown batter. Process again while pouring the boiling water slowly into the mixture. Turn off the processor, and stir in the chocolate chips. (If you’re not using a food process, cream the butter and sugar, then beat in the eggs, followed by the dry ingredients, then the sour cream and vanilla, then beat in the water.)

2. Pour the fairly runny batter into the loaf tin, and bake for an hour. When ready, the loaf will be risen and split down the middle, and a skewer should come out fairly clean.

3. Just before the cake comes out of the oven, put the syrup ingredients of cocoa, water and sugar into a small saucepan, and boil for five minutes. What you want is a reduced liquid, a syrup.

4. When you’ve taken the cake out of the oven, pierce all over with a skewer, and pour the syrup as evenly as possible over the cake. Let the cake become completely cold, then slip it out of its tin, removing the paper, and place it on your serving plate. Get your chocolate, and slice thin slivers off the block with a heavy knife, until you’ve got enough to cover the top of the cake. If required, spoon a little extra syrup so that the chocolate will stick to the surface.

quadruple chocolate cake

19 comments:

Clair said...

<3<3<3

Ingrid_3Bs said...

I'm not a fan of chocolate cake but man that does look good!
~ingrid

Dewi said...

Oh good grace, this look really decadent, and I am bookmarking this recipe. Thanks for sharing, I'll be sure to make it soon, and let you know how it goes.

Dewi said...

For step #1, how much boiling water does it need? Thanks!

Dewi said...

Never mind ... I found it! Sorry.... dear, should learn to read carefully, no rush ...rush...

...Sophie. said...

I HOPE MY CAKE IS AS GOOD AS THIS.

I LOVE YOU.

AND I ALSO LOVE THOSE NOMMISH PEANUT BUTTER CHOCOLATE SQUIDGY THINGS.

I HAVE ALMOST EATEN THE ENTIRE BOX.

BUT BASICALLY I ADORE YOU <3

grace said...

good to learn a bit more about you, indigo. kudos to you for having guitar skills! nice tribute to your buds, too, and what a cake. the fact that you made this for someone and were able to willingly part with it says a lot about the strength of your friendship! :)

Karine said...

Wowowow What a cake! I love the tons of chocolate in it! :)

morgana said...

So much chocolate... My inner Homer is trying to get out, I'm at work and shops are still closed. What can I do? It's a hard situation, now I'll be thinking choc till I arrive home and there are seven long hours left till that moment.

Look carefully at the news tomorrow, if you hear about a girl that went crazy in Spain because of chocolate, it was me.

And now I hope you understand something of what I wrote. This matter of being a non-english spoken woman is driving me crazy too.

Aaaaaaaapoiuqiudkzfjañlkfahfajhdfajdhajhjvhkhcfilauhriuyi vnmnv !!!! I said.

Adam said...

I've never heard of Coronation Chicken, but I'm glad we have such a mind melding connection. It's amazing what can happen an ocean away :)

Beautiful cake, and I always enjoy learning more about other bloggers. You get huge high fives in my book for being a guitar player, and I'm the same way when it comes to friends. The good ones just make life easier.

Good luck with your dog walking, I should get a dog too :)

Irina@PastryPal said...

Ohhhhh myyyyy gawwwwddd. This is the most decadent looking thing. I can't imagine that a cake can get any moister. Just, wow. I've got to bookmark this.

Anonymous said...

Nom nom nom. Sounds nice. Looks nice, but not as nice as your face. Your face is taaaaaaasty.

I wrote you a letter yesterday. Let me know when you get it.
xxxxx

I am going to be ANONYMOUS HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
It's the best kind of Moose. Except maybe Mousse.

Julia @ Mélanger said...

Wow, someone mentioned this cake to me before, and I stored that information away to make it one day. Seeing these photos, I want to make it now. I am a complete chocolate nut. My absolute favourite. Lovely!

Liz said...

Oh, nom nom nom! Quadruple chocolate ANYTHING makes my day. This looks amazing.

Anna said...

Holy shnikies, that's chocolatey! I'm feeling a coma coming on just drooling over the pictures :D

Emily said...

My goodness. Look how incredibly moist this cake looks! Great job!

Peggy said...

my boyfriend would absolutely love this. and because of that, i have to keep it away from him because he would eat it for breakfast lunch and dinner for the next 2 days (if it even would last that long) haha

Kerstin said...

Wow, this looks like an incredibly rich and decadent cake - yum!

Unknown said...

Quadruple chocolate cake is my favorite cake.I like it and i knew how make quadruple chocolate cake?
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