Seriously rich chocolate cake

I am not afraid to say that this is a stolen recipe. Cakes are not my forte and never have been. I found this in an issue of "Good Food" and just could not resist. People who know me will confirm that I have a thing or two or three for chocolate. At work I used to keep a whole drawer full of goodies which I (and some colleagues, to be fair) would bring home from business trips. At first, buying the chocolate and "managing" the drawer was enough for me. But as soon as I fell pregnant around this time last year, I have to admit I was not only the main purveyor, but also the main consumer of those chocolates... So when Angela Nielson published her "gooiest-ever chocolate cake", I had to respond to her call!
The cake itself was quite simple to make and I enriched it somewhat by adding frozen raspberries, which gave a tangy twist to the whole affair. The chocolate curls were a bummer to make, excuse my French, I had about 5 gos, using different boards, freezing instead of "fridging", cooling down, warming up - a messy affair all around. Glad the cake took almost two hours to bake, so I had to keep myself occupied anyway... But I am quite pleased with the result in the end, it looks messier than in the magazine, but I got a few compliments nonetheless.

Seriously rich chocolate cake
(makes 16 portions)

200 g dark chocolate, ca. 60% cocoa solids (broken into pieces)
200 g butter (cut in pieces)
1 heaped tbsp instant coffee (I used toffee-flavoured)
170 g self-raising flour
¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
200 g light muscovado sugar
200 g caster sugar
25 g (good quality) cocoa powder
3 medium eggs
75 ml buttermilk
100 g frozen raspberries
grated chocolate or chocolate curls (see below)

For the ganache:
150 g dark chocolate (ca 60% cocoa solids)
50 g milk chocolate
284 ml double cream
2 tbsp caster sugar

Butter a 22 cm round non-stick cake (spring-form) tin. Preheat the oven to 140 C (fan). Put the chocolate pieces into a pan, add the butter, coffee granules and 125 ml water. Warm through over a low heat until everything is melted. In the meantime, mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda and sugars in a bowl, first rubbing with your hands, then sieving to remove any lumps. Add the cocoa powder. Beat the eggs with the buttermilk and add to the mixture. Combine this with the chocolate sauce, until everything is well blended and smooth, then fold in the frozen raspberries. Pour into the baking tin and bake for ca. 1 hour 35 minutes. Take out and leave to cool on a wire rack.
When ready to decorate, prepare the ganache: chop the chocolate, heat the double cream and the sugar over a medium heat and pour the cream over the chocolate. Stir with a spoon until the chocolate has melted and the mixture is smooth.
When it has cooled down, cut the cake in half horizontally and sandwich together with some of the ganache, then pour the remaining ganache on top of the cake and spoon it around to cover everything evenly. If using, place the chocolate curls or shavings on top and around the cake. Leave to cool and set in the fridge, for at least one hour.

If you want to make chocolate curls, melt some chocolate in a bain-marie or a microwave and spread onto an even surface. Marble seems to work best, I used a smooth lacquered wooden chopping board. When the chocolate is spread in a thin and even layer, transfer the board to the fridge and leave to set. In order make curls, the chocolate must not be too soft nor too hard, so it's a bit of trial and error.
Take a big chopping knife and apply at a 45 degree angle, using a circular motion, until little cones form. Leave to cool in the fridge until ready to decorate the cake.
I won't lie to you, this requires practice and more often than not you will end up frustrated. However, succeeding with your first few curls feels like Christmas and birthday combined!

Comments

[jun]

looks positively decadent! would i need to change anything if i'm planning to use fresh raspberries instead? thanks :)

[johanna]

Hmm good question. The raspberries made the base of the cake moister than I thought anyway, I hoped that by using frozen it would take them longer to release their juices. But the cooking time is very long... Thinking about it now, I guess fresh ones would be better - so just go for it, but be sure to let me know the outcome!

[Shaun]

I am drooling over my keyboard!

I hope you enjoy Slow Food... I am already learning a lot from the people in my group... can't wait to hear about your adventures!

By the way I love your definition of the passionate cook... reminds me of a quote which I think was made by the Dalai Lama, "approach love and cooking with all abandon."

[brady-licious]

I made this cake for a friend's birthday (his name is Syrus, I renamed the cake "Syriusly Chocolate Cake, aka Chocolate Coffee Raspberry Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Dream") and I got complimented on it all night, which I figured were just people being polite. But today, I got calls from people asking for the recipe saying it was "the best cake they had ever tasted". The parts of the cake in contact with the pan got a little bit crispy out of the oven and turned just slightly chewy after all the sauce, sort of like a perfect fudge brownie. It was heavenly, and I'm only entitled to say that because it isn't my recipe! I skipped the curls, though I did make a chocolate disc with some artfully drizzled white icing on it. But I ate part of it before it made it on the cake so it never made it on the cake! Thanks for the recipe!

[Emmanuel]

Hello I was curious about these two ingredients

light muscovado sugar
caster sugar

None of the grocery stores here in Florida Carry Caster sugar and I was curious if regular Table sugar would be an ok substitute or would that ruin the cake? Also What could be a substitute for the light muscovado sugar? Regular Brown Sugar?

[johanna]

I am not familiar with table sugar, so can’t give you a straight answer here… Caster sugar is a finely ground crystallized white sugar, we use it in baking because it doesn’t need long to dissolve. If the sugar were coarser, the cake would bake the same, but in recipes with a short baking time or where no cooking is involved or the mixture is very dry, you might end up noticing the sugar crystals.

Muscovado sugar has more flavour than brown sugar, but most recipes would work equally well with brown. Light brown sugar again is more finely ground and lighter in colour than regular, but where this doesn’t have an impact on appearance or texture (ie in a cream or something that isn’t cooked) regular brown is fine.

[Anna]

Hi I believe that you guys call "caster sugar" "super-fine sugar" in America

[Ellen]

The cake is in the oven atm, first attempt. Mine doesn't looks as dark as yours but looks like it has risen more. Smells delish, hope its yum :)

[Ellen]

Awesome! Very nice, everyone at work will love it. Thankyou :)

[johanna]

Hi Ellen,

I am very glad you liked the recipe, I hope it tasted as good as it looked and that you were duely celebrated as a domestic goddess by your work coleagues!
thanks for letting me know as well, its always great to get this kind of feedback!

Kind regards
johanna

[Alla]

Hi! This recipe looks amazing! I live in USA and it is hard for me to compare all of the grams and ml. Can you please write the ingredients in cups or ounces? Very grateful if you do!! Thank you!

[johanna]

Hi Alla,

I am sorry about that... I find imperial measures too unreliable and it is a lot of work to offer every recipe in 2 different systems - rather than just converting the numbers, I would have to actually MAKE each recipe twice (at least!) to be sure that the outcome would be what I intend it to be.
unfortunately, conversion is not as easy as it seems and I have learnt the hard way by using the metric measures provided in some American cookbooks only to find out that they never tested the recipes by actually COOKING with those metric conversions... and experiencing big disasters in the kitchen!
the only thing i can offer you is a link to conversion tables, i hope delia is trustworthy http://www.deliaonline.com/conversion-tables.html