Chocolate cake recipe
Of all cakes, this is the one with the highest expectations, but fear not, I promise this recipe will meet the toughest standards. For the perfect dreamy chocolate experience, I recommend filling and topping the cake with my fudgy icing, but you might like to verge into Black Forest territory with the white choc-cherry variation. Either way, the cake is at its best a day or two after making, when cake and filling have subtly and deliciously become one.
Equipment
23cm round loose-bottomed cake tin or 2 x 20cm sandwich tins, 5cm deep, sides well greased and base-lined with baking parchment
Pam's tips
You can make alternative versions using the same recipe and swtiching or adding ingredients.
Black Forest
Combine 200g warm cherry or damson jam with 200g melted white chocolate. Use to layer the cake together and top with Chocolate icing.
Triple-layer cake
Halve the listed quantities and bake the cake in an 18cm round tin. Assemble as above.
Ingredients
- 25 g Cocoa powder
- 25 g Drinking chocolate powder
- 200 g Plain flour
- 1 tsp Baking powder
- 1 tsp Bicarbonate of soda
- 1 pinch Sea salt
- 175 g Unsalted butter, cut into small pieces and softened
- 100 g Light soft brown sugar
- 100 g Caster sugar
- 4 Eggs
- 150 ml Buttermilk (or 75ml whole milk mixed with 75ml plain yoghurt)
- 100 g Ground almonds
- 2 Packs of chocolate fudge icing - For the filling
- 50 g Plain chocolate, finely grated - For the filling
Details
- Cuisine: British
- Recipe Type: Cake
- Difficulty: Easy
- Preparation Time: 20 mins
- Cooking Time: 40 mins
- Serves: 12
Step-by-step
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas mark 4. Put the cocoa powder and drinking chocolate into a small bowl. Add 50ml freshly boiled water, mix to a paste and set aside. Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt together and set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, using either a wooden spoon or a hand-held electric whisk, beat the butter to a cream. Add both the sugars and the cocoa paste. Continue beating until light and very creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, adding 1 tbsp of the flour with each and beating thoroughly before adding the next. Then fold in the remaining flour with the buttermilk little by little - dry, wet, dry, wet - until you have a very soft, creamy mixture. Finally, carefully fold in the ground almonds.
- Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin(s), spreading it out lightly and evenly with the back of the spoon. Bake in the oven, allowing 45-50 minutes for a cake in a 23cm tin and 35-40 minutes for cakes in 20cm deep sandwich tins. Leave the cake(s) in the tin(s) for 10 minutes before turning out and placing on a wire rack to cool completely.
- When cold, cut the 23cm cake into three layers, or each of the 20cm cakes into two layers. Sandwich the layers together with the chocolate fudge icing, saving sufficient to smother over the top. Finish the top with a sprinkling of grated chocolate. This cake will keep for 5-6 days in an airtight tin.
Also worth your attention:
More recipes from Pam Corbin
Book: Cakes (River Cottage Handbook)