Ok, so I have been MIA since… October? Life kind of took over for awhile – the usual – work, studies, interviews, exams. And in between all that, I just wanted to eat and relax.
Alas, it is a new year! Happy 2016 to everyone and it’s definitely going to be a challenging year for me. I got my first job to start off my career, and it’s making me wonder if it’ll have as much time as I did when i was a student to be constantly try out new places to indulge in. Which always reminds me of that triangle where you can only pick 2 categories and not have all 3 at one time.
For Josh’s birthday in November, I was wondering what cake I’d bake for him and while I was procrastinating for final exams, I randomly decided to watch an episode of Nigella’s new show Simply Nigella. In that episode, she made the most indulging looking dark vegan chocolate cake I have laid my eyes on, and I rarely do chocolate cake at all. All in all, i have made this cake 4 times in various ways and garnishes, and they’ve all worked out perfectly moist and delish.
As it was an originally a vegan recipe, it called for coconut butter, which you can get from Harris Farm by the way, or any organic shop I suppose but I haven’t checked on that. But I have also used normal butter for the same amount required and worked just as well too!
And the soft dark sugar required can be bought from your regular baking section at Coles or Woolies under the CSR brand.
All the pictures shown have been taken at the various times I have made this cake.
The recipe makes only 1 layer. And don’t worry like I did if the mix looks really watery, it’s actually the key for it being so moist and light.
Recipe
Equipment needed: Saucepan/small pot, spring cake tin, baking paper, spatula
For the icing
75g Coconut Butter/Unsalted Butter
50g Soft Dark Brown Sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon Coffee Powder (I used the Campos Superior Blend I had at home)
1 1/2 tablespoon Cocoa Powder
4 tablespoons Cold Water
150g Dark Chocolate (I used a 75% Cadbury baking chocolate), finely chopped
For the cake
225g Plain Flour
1 1/2 teaspoon Bicarbonate Soda
1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt
1 1/2 teaspoon Coffee Powder
75g Cocoa Powder
300g Soft Dark Brown Sugar
375g Hot Water, recently boiled from the kettle
75g Coconut Oil, when solid (If melted, 90mls)
1 1/2 teaspoon White Wine Vinegar
To decorate
Dried Rose Petals
Pistachios
Or… anything you feel like!
Method
- Preheat the oven to 160C Fan.
- For the icing, put all of the icing ingredients except the chopped chocolate into a saucepan. Bring to the boil, making sure everything’s dissolved. Then turn off the heat but leave the pan on the stove. Quickly add the finely chopped chocolate and swirl the pan so that it is all covered by the mixture. Then whisk until you have a darkly glossy icing, and leave to cool. Give the icing a stir with a spatula every now and again.
- Line the bottom of your springform cake tin (you will need a good, leakproof one as this is a very wet batter) with baking paper.
- In a large mixing bowl, put the flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt, coffee, and cocoa powder in a bowl and use a fork to mix till it becomes uniformed.
- In another smaller bowl, mix together the sugar, water, coconut oil and vinegar until the coconut oil has melted, and stir into the dry ingredients. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 30 minutes. Though, do check at the 25-minute mark to see if it is already done. When it’s ready, the cake will be coming away from the edges of the tin and a cake tester will come out clean.
- Once the cake is cooked, transfer the tin to a wire rack and let the cake cool in its tin. Once completely cool remove from the tin.
- Turn to your icing, and give it a good stir with a spatula to check it is at the right consistency. It needs to be runny enough to cover the cake, but thick enough to stay (mostly) on the top. So pour over the cake, and use a spatula to ease the icing to the edges, if needed. If you wish to decorate, now is the time to do it. In which case, sprinkle with rose petals and chopped pistachios or anything else that you want. Leave to stand to cool for the icing to set before slicing into the cake.
Let me know if you’ve tried this and how it worked out for you!
Wait! The camera eats first! 