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.

Chocolate Guinness Cake

I baked this cake for a friend of ours for his birthday that was on the Monday that just passed. Everyone that had a piece really enjoyed it and said that it was out of this world. I always get similar comments whenever I bake this cake and I am always pressured into baking it, especially by my wife who is "addicted" to anything chocolate. I sometimes wonder if she loves chocolate more than she does me.


I was reluctant to post this receipe here because unfortunately it does not belong to me. I wish it did because it raised my status in baking and cooking from average to epicness, if there is such a word. But truth be told, the receipe belongs to the fantastically delicious Nigella Lawson. I found this receipe inher book Feast: Food that celebrates life. I highly recommend you go out and purchase this book.


The photo below is proof of what was left after the birthday party. If I had a second piece, this post would not be here right now.

For the Cake

1. 250ml Guinness Beer
2. 250g unsalted butter
3. 75g cocoa
4. 400g caster sugar
5. 142ml sour cream
6. 275g plain flour
7. 2 eggs
8. 1 tbsp vanilla extract
9. 2.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda

For the Topping

1. 300g cream cheese
2. 150g icing sugar
3. 125ml double or whipping cream

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius and butter and line a 23cm springform tin. pour the Guinness into a large saucepan and add butter in slices and heat until the butter is melted, at which time you should whisk in the cocoa and sugar.

Beat the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla and then pour into the saucepan with that contains the beer and butter mixture. Finally beat in the flour and the bicarb.

Pour the batter mixture into the springform tin and bake for about 45 minutes. When done remove from oven and place on a rack to cool. When totally cooled off, whip together the icing sugar, cream cheese and cream in a bowl. When it reaches a nice thick consistancy, pour the mixture onto the cake and spread it out until it resembles a pint of Guinness.