When you bake choc-fudge cookies that make you want to **** in your *****, how do you follow them up with a chocolate cake that doesn’t disappoint? Thank you, Nigella.
Ingredients:
Cake:
Scant ½ cup unsalted butter
4 oz bittersweet chocolate, broken up
4 large eggs
½ cup plus 1 tbsp sugar
1/3 cup self raising flour, sifted 3 times
3 tbsp Marsala
Icing:
4 oz bittersweet chocolate
1 tbsp Marsala
1/3 cup plus 2 tbsp heavy cream
Another Nigella quibble: crazy measurements. There has to be a simpler way to express all that.
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Melt the butter and chocolate together in the microwave or a double boiler, and then set aside to cool slightly.
2. Beat the eggs and sugar together until thick, pale and mousse-like and greatly increased in volume; they should double, triple even.
Gently fold the sifted flour into the egg mixture, trying not to lose all of the air. Now fold the butter and chocolate very carefully into the cake mixture (I should say at this point that of all the uncooked cake mixtures in this book this is without a doubt my favourite: leave yourself a decent amount in the bowl for scraping-out purposes. (Oh Nigella, how deliciously wicked you are. Lick that spoon)).
Pour into the pan and cook for 35 mins, by which time the top should be firm and the cake underneath dense and desirably damp.
Gently fold the sifted flour into the egg mixture, trying not to lose all of the air. Now fold the butter and chocolate very carefully into the cake mixture (I should say at this point that of all the uncooked cake mixtures in this book this is without a doubt my favourite: leave yourself a decent amount in the bowl for scraping-out purposes. (Oh Nigella, how deliciously wicked you are. Lick that spoon)).
Pour into the pan and cook for 35 mins, by which time the top should be firm and the cake underneath dense and desirably damp.
Everything so far is going exactly as Nigella has described for me. The cake is a really nice matte colour, as if it’s been dusted with cocoa.
3. Cool on a rack for 5 mins, and then pour over Marsala. I find it easier to do this by the teaspoonful so that the liquid in evenly distributed. Leave the cake to cool completely before releasing it from its pan.
4. So, the icing: melt the chocolate, Marsala, and cream in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over gentle heat.
Take it off the heat, and whisk until it reaches a good icing consistency; smooth, thick, but not solid. I like to spread this just on the very top of the cake, which anyway sinks on cooling so that you should have a roughly circular sunken pond to fill, leaving an outline of cooked-cake rim. When set, you’re left, beautifully, with a Sacher-shiny disc of ganache on top of this dusty-brown, matte cake.
Take it off the heat, and whisk until it reaches a good icing consistency; smooth, thick, but not solid. I like to spread this just on the very top of the cake, which anyway sinks on cooling so that you should have a roughly circular sunken pond to fill, leaving an outline of cooked-cake rim. When set, you’re left, beautifully, with a Sacher-shiny disc of ganache on top of this dusty-brown, matte cake.
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| Shiny brown pools, just like Osama Bin Laden's eyes. |
Verdict: I didn’t have time to wait for the cake to cool because this birthday wasn’t going to wait. This actually turned out quite well. When I cut into the cake, the icing ran down the sides like a brown Nigella sauce. All in all, it was a whole new cake-eating experience. It’s basically a chocolate mousse with a crisp layer on the outside which creates the illusion of cake-ness. I don’t even usually dig chocolate cake but this was a different situation entirely.
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