Dense Chocolate Loaf Cake - Nigella Lawson

"I love this cake. As Nigella says: "the essence of all that is desirable in chocolate - dark intensity isn't toyed with nor upstaged by any culinary elaboration. The plainest of plain loaf cakes - damp, heady, aromatic!" What can I say? Be sure to line the tin well."
 
Download
photo by a food.com user photo by a food.com user
Ready In:
1hr
Ingredients:
7
Serves:
8-10
Advertisement

ingredients

Advertisement

directions

  • Preheat the oven to 190C/gas5. Grease and line a 23x13x7cm cm (9x5x3in) loaf tin. Cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs and vanilla, beating in well.
  • Next fold in the melted and cooled chocolate, taking care to blend well but do not overbeat.
  • You want the ingredients combined: you don't want a light airy mass. Gently add the flour, to which you've added the bicarb, alternately spoon by spoon, with 250 ml of boiling water until you have a smooth and fairly liquid batter.
  • Pour into the lined loaf tin and bake for 30 minutes. Turn the oven down to 170C/gas mark 3 and 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.
  • Plaace the loaf tin on a rack and leave to get completely cold before turning it out. It improves if left for a day or so before eating. This cake will probably sink in the middle because of its denseness.

Questions & Replies

Got a question? Share it with the community!
Advertisement

Reviews

  1. This is one of my all time favourite chocolate cakes. The recipe has however needed a few tweaks to get it just right. Try subbing 50g of the flour with 50g of cocoa powder for a more chocolatey taste. Try reducing the sugar down to 325g and using half dark, half light muscovado sugar (or half caster sugar) to lighten the taste. And finally, I get the best results by baking for 50-55mins at a constant 175c, rather than using the two temps suggested in the original recipe! Happy baking :)
     
  2. Got this in the oven now, and it's erupted like a volcano with about 1/3 of the mix on the tray at the bottom of the oven! Its also been baking for almost 1.5 hours and is still liquid in the middle of the tin. I love Nigella recipes as they never fail but, no matter what this tastes like, I'm not doing this again. :-(
     
  3. The first time I made this cake it sank, but not too much. Today, the cake has turned into a sunken hole. Does anyone have any idea how to stop it from sinking? I always think that the cake needs to be slightly more cooked. <br/><br/>For my recipe I use 75 grams of dark chocolate and 25 grams of normal white chocolate, as it gives it a softer taste. I also use 2 tablespoons of normal chocolate powder. Usually I cook this cake for 55 minutes, not 45, as I feel that the extra ten minutes makes the cake that much harder. <br/><br/><br/>Overall this is a wonderful, moist, rich cake, and would be perfect if the sinking issue could be solved.
     
  4. This is my very favourite cake to make - it tastes lovely, is really easy and my husband is addicted to it.<br/><br/>The only downside is the collapsing nature of it - I have no idea how you get it to stop it sinking in the middle.<br/><br/>The first time I made it, the texture was moist but not soggy, but with a vein of really stodgy goo running through the middle - my husband loved it but it was a bit too stodgy for me. <br/><br/>Last time I made it, I separated the eggs and whipped the eggs whites, folding them in at the end. Unfortunately it rose so much that I lost half the cake to the baking tray below (always put a tray under this cake when you're baking it, it has a tendency to spill over!), but the texture of what remained was perfectly squidy throughout. Yum.<br/><br/>I am going to make this again today, but this time I am going to put in a really high collar of greaseproof in an attempt to contain the best (maybe I'll also reduce the raising agent to allow for the whipped egg whites, but will definitely be whipping them again!).
     
  5. Because of the brown sugar (I think) this cake burns quickly on the outside. The inside was okay, moist and fluffy, although it tasted too treacly for my taste. Don't think I would make this one again.
     
Advertisement

RECIPE SUBMITTED BY

Not much to tell! I'm a South African living in London, mother of four rangingfrom 25 to 9. I am desperately trying to get my children's stories published - anyone out there interested? Until my ship sails in, I cook, eat everything and anything, and then diet like mad. I love experimenting with new recipes and I absolutely hate spoilt kids who visit and say? "what is THIS?" and push it away without trying. My favourite cookbook is Mrs Beeton's family cookbook. 1994 edition.
 
View Full Profile
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

Find More Recipes