Moist Chocolate Cake

• 
  

S and T came for lunch on Sunday and a birthday cake was in order. Quiet investigations revealed that T has a penchant for chocolate cakes and so I used my moist chocolate cake recipe, sandwiched together with chocolate and hazelnut spread ...which sounds a little bit nursery breakfast but believe me works amazingly well...he also has a penchant for drinking straws so it was quite fitting...what is it with men and nursery food...? 

I then coated it in lashings of chocolate ganache.  I used the eggless chocolate custard from the Hummingbird Bakery recipe for Brooklyn Blackout cake. The result was a very moist cake with a lovely glossy coat...that sounds a bit like the best of breed at Crufts doesn't it?   It worked amazingly...a very moreish cake..

to make my Moist Chocolate Cake you will need

•               8oz of SR flour

•               2 large egg

•               5oz of butter

•               5 oz of unrefined caster sugar

•               5 tablespoons of milk

•               1 teaspoon of Vanilla Extract

•               A small cup of espresso coffee 

•               Chocolate spread (Nutella hazelnut and chocolate spread is favourite for this)

•               Chocolate Ganache or eggless chocolate custard (recipe here) 
    
   One 20in cake tin


Edit: Silly me! I forgot the main ingredient! A couple of tablespoons of cocoa powder. Adjust the amount to suit the colour and chocolate density that you want. I like to use Green & Black organic cocoa powder but any will do.

Method:

1.             Preheat the oven to 180c/350f/gas mark 4.

2.             Prepare a 20cm cake tin by rubbing with oil or butter and lining with baking parchment.

3.             Cream together the butter and sugar and mix until light and fluffy.

4.             Beat in the eggs one at a time and add the vanilla extract.

5.             Fold in the flour and a little ground cinnamon.

6.             Add the milk and small amount of espresso. The batter should be of a good dropping consistency to achieve a moist cake so if not add a little more liquid.

7.             Place the mixture into the prepared cake tin.

8.             Bake int the preheated oven.  Check after about 35 minutes or so.  If the it looks ready, test by inserting a skewer into the centre of the cake.  If it comes out clean it's cooked.  If made this cake in a different ovens and the cooking time has varied from 30 minutes to an hour.  It's important to keep an eye on it after the first 30 minutes because you want it to be cooked but not dry as this is intended to be lovely and moist.

9.             Once cooked remove from the oven.  Leave in the tin for a couple of minutes before taking out of the tin and placing on a cooling rack.

10.         Once cooled slice the cake in half to make two separate cakes.   You could bake the batter in two pans but I think doing it this way makes a much moister cake as you have two crunchy outside layers.   

11.         Sandwich the cakes together with your filling of choice.  It's also lovely with whipped cream, sweetened with a little unrefined icing sugar and vanilla extract.  The unrefined icing sugar gives a lovely caramel taste to the cream.  

12.         Place onto a serving dish or cake stand and cover the top and sides with chocolate ganache and decorate.

After A's famous pizzas we walked off the extra pounds at Port Meadow on what turned out to be a gloriously sunny day with lots of little sailing boats out on the river ending up with coffee or tea in little china cups at the Perch in Binsey...a perfect Sunday afternoon.

ps what is it with that little dot at the top of the page...I'm not sure where it came from but I'll be bload  if I can get rid of it...