Nigella's Dense Chocolate Loaf Cake

Nigella Lawson without doubt makes the best chocolate cakes.....My wife lives for chocolate and every time I make any of Nigella's recipes, I think our marriage is revived....
This is the first time I make the Dense chocolate Loaf cake and let me tell you this much......yummie! I found this recipe at http://bakingforthecure.wordpress.com/2008/09/17/dense-chocolate-loaf-cake/
(Just a quick reminder....My famous Guiness Cake is a Nigella recipe too).

Ingredients

• 225 gr. soft unsalted butter

• 375 gr. dark muscovado sugar

• 2 large eggs, beaten

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 100 gr. best dark chocolate, melted

• 200 gr. plain flour

• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

• 250 ml. boiling water

Method

Use one 23 x 13 x 7cm loaf tin

Preheat the oven to 190C/gas mark 5.

Put in a baking sheet in case of sticky drips later, and grease and line the loaf t

in. The lining is important as this is a very damp cake: use parchment, Bake-O-Glide or loaf-tin shaped paper case.

Cream the butter and sugar, either with a wooden spoon or with an electric hand-held mixer, then add the eggs and vanilla, beating in well. Next, fold in the melted and now slightly cooled chocolate, taking care to blend well but being careful not to overbeat. You want the ingredients combined: you don’t want a light airy mass. Then gently add the flour, to which you’ve added the bicarb, alternately spoon by spoon, with the boiling water until you have a smooth fairly liquid batter. Pour into the lined loaf pan.

Bake for 30 minutes. Turn the oven down to 170 degrees C./ gas mark 3 and continue to cook for another 15 minutes. The cake will still be a bit squidgy inside, so an inserted cake tester or skewer won’t come out completely clean.

Place the loaf pan on a rack, and leave to get completely cold before turning it out. (I often leave it for a day or so: like gingerbread, it improves.) Don’t worry if it sinks in the middle: indeed, it will do so because it’s such a dense and damp cake.

Glazing

This is not part of Nigella's recipe.

• 85g chocolate coarsley chopped
• 3Tbsp icing sugar
• 3Tbsp (42g) unsalted butter

Melt chocolate. Remove from heat and stir in the icing sugar. Stir in the butter little by little.