This recipe is dark, moist, sublime, delicious, with a crunch. It offers everything you have ever wanted in a chocolate cake. It rises a little on the top during cooking; after turning it out, invert the cake, in order to frost a level surface.
Serves 8 – 10
Ingredients:
– 250 ml boiling water
– 50 g cocoa powder (125 ml)
– 125 ml sunflower oil
– 100 g dark chocolate
– 125 g butter (125 ml)
– 3 large eggs
– 300 g castor sugar (365 ml)
-300 g cake flour (540 ml)
-5 ml bicarbonate of soda
-5 ml baking powder
-Pinch salt
– 125 ml buttermilk
To decorate: Ice with Chocolate Ganache; 8 – 10 Romany Cream Biscuits
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180ºC/160ºC fan/Gas mark 4.
2. Grease and line base of 1 x 26 cm/ 2 x 20 cm spring-form cake pan/s with baking paper. Grease the paper a second time.
3. Place boiling water, cocoa powder and sunflower oil into a jug; stir to mix well; set aside to cool.
4. Melt chocolate and butter together on 100% power in the microwave oven, for
2 – 3 minutes. Set aside to cool.
5. Beat eggs and castor sugar together in an electric food mixer, until light and fluffy.
6. Sift the cake flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, and salt.
7. Blend the cooled cocoa-powder mixture with the melted chocolate mixture. Add in
the buttermilk.
8. Add the sifted flour mixture alternately with the liquid mixture, into the egg mixture. Take care to mix gently together; do not overbeat.
9. Pour mixture into prepared pan/s.
10. Bake for 25 – 30 minutes for two pans, or 40 – 45 minutes for one pan, until firm in the centre, and a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in the pans for 10 – 15 minutes, before turning out.
11. Allow to cool completely on a cake-cooling rack.
12. Place one layer onto a plate, top with chocolate ganache. Roughly break up or blitz in a food chopper 4 – 5 Romany Cream biscuits; scatter over the ganache. Place another layer on top. If using one layer, cut the layer in half, and proceed as for the two-layer cake.
13. Frost top layer with more chocolate ganache icing, so that it drizzles slightly down the sides of the cake; scatter the remaining broken Romany Cream biscuits evenly over the top.
Chocolate Ganache
Silky smooth, decadent in taste; the ultimate topping for sheer indulgence.
- 600 ml cream
- 200 g dark chocolate
Method:
1. Place cream in a wide-mouth pan, bring to boiling point. Do not boil: the cream should be ‘spitting’. Whisk well
whilst the cream is coming to the boil.
2. Remove from the heat; stir in dark chocolate, broken into pieces,
3. Allow to stand for about 4 minutes, then mix to blend well. A small wire whisk works very well for this task.
4. Allow to cool quite a while before using (too hot and it will run, and not cover the cake very well; too cold,
and it will not spread to a smooth, glossy shine, which holds its shape).
5. Pour evenly over surface of cake or cup cakes. A spatula helps to spread the ganache evenly over the top.
6. Extra chocolate ganache may be frozen for another recipe.
Tips:
• Should you find the ganache very runny, either you did not cook the cream for long enough for it to ‘spit’; or the proportion of chocolate was incorrect. The mixture needs to cool down sufficiently to thicken.
• Note that the ganache will be lighter in colour when just made. As it cools or is poured over the cake, it will become darker as it sets.