Quadruple Chocolate Cake

Picture of Quadruple Chocolate Cake.

It's like you've died and gone to chocolate heaven!

Ingredients

Cake

  • 200 g plain flour
  • 0.5 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
  • 50 g cocoa
  • 275 g caster sugar
  • 175 g unsalted butter, softened
  • 2 eggs, medium
  • 15 ml vanilla extract
  • 80 ml sour cream
  • 125 ml boiling water
  • 175 g dark chocolate, broken into small chips

Syrup

  • 10 g cocoa
  • 125 ml water
  • 100 g caster sugar

Method

Preheat the oven to 170 C, placing a baking sheet in as you do so. Line a 21 cm x 11 cm x 7.5 cm loaf tin with greaseproof paper. The easy way to do this is to simply scrunch up a sheet of paper and then press into the tin. Else, if you're feeling brave, line with a double layer of cling film (not non-PVC food wrap!!)

Cream together the butter and sugar in a large bowl. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Fold in the flour, bicarb and cocoa, followed by the sour cream and vanilla. Alternatively, place all the above ingredients in a food processor and blitz until you have a smooth brown batter. Finally fold in the water and chocolate chips. This will leave you with a glorious, fairly thick, batter which you should transfer to the loaf tin. Cook in the centre of the oven for about an hour. When done, a cake tester inserted in the middle of the cake will come out clean(ish). Don't worry if it appears a little moist, but remove too soon otherwise it will collapse in the middle on cooling.

About 15 minutes before the cooking time is up, heat the syrup ingredients in a saucepan and boil for 5 minutes, or until it has reduced to a syrup. What you want is a liquid with a dark chocolately intensity.

Remove the cake from the oven and, whilst still in its tin, prick all over and pour the syrup as evenly as possible. It will appear that most runs to the sides of the tin but, so long as you have pricked the cake, some will be absorbed in the centre.

Let the cake cool completely, then slip it out of the tin, removing the lining paper as you do so. Sit it on your serving plate. Now, take a heavy knife to a thick slab of chocolate and cut to produce slithers and curls of chocolate. Going by eye, sprinkle these over the cake. All that then remains is to eat, preferably with some thick cream!