Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake

May 23, 2010 by glutenshmooten

Week 24 of the Cookbook Challenge and the theme is my favourite so far – Chocolate! I got my first Nigella cookbook for Christmas last year and have been flicking through it a lot…salivating…so decided to make something. I chose an Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake.

Ingredients for the cake:

200g plain flour (substitute with gluten free flour)

200g caster sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

40g cocoa powder

175g soft unsalted butter

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

150ml sour cream

Ingredients for the icing:

75g unsalted butter

175g dark chocolate broken into small pieces

300g icing sugar

1 tablespoon golden syrup

125ml sour cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

sugar flowers, optional (I used the below sugar flowers)

Take everything out of the fridge so all the ingredients can come to room temperature. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees and line and butter two 20cm cake trays with removable bases.

Now combine all the ingredients in a food processor – flour, sugar, baking powder and bicarb, cocoa, butter, eggs, vanilla and sour cream – and process until you have a smooth, thick batter. Divide this batter into the prepared tins and bake until a thin skewer comes out clean, which should be about 35 minutes, but it is wise to start checking at 25 minutes. Also, it might make sense to switch the two cakes around in the oven halfway through cooking time.

Remove the cakes, in their tins, to a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes before turning out of their tins. Don’t worry about any cracks as they will easily be covered by the icing later.

To make the icing, melt the butter and chocolate in a good sized bowl either in the microwave or suspended over a pan of simmering water. Go slowly either way; you don’t want any burning of seizing.

While the chocolate and butter are cooling a little, sieve the icing sugar into another bowl. Add the golden syrup to the cooled chocolate mixture, followed by the sour cream and vanilla and then when all this is combined whisk in the sieved icing sugar.

When you’re done you may need to add a little boiling water – say a teaspoon or so – or indeed some more icing sugar: it depends on whether you need the icing to be runnier or thicker, or indeed it might be right as it is. It should be liquid enough to coat easily, but thick enough not to drip off.

Spread the icing in between the 2 cakes like a sandwich, then cover the whole cake in icing and add the sugar flowers to decorate.

I loved how simple this cake was to make – really easy and tasted beautiful. Was really really sweet though, I felt like I’d had my weeks worth of sugar with a few bites!