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- Photo: Food Thinkers / Flickr
If you enjoy quick baking and you are a fan of rich dark chocolate then this is the cake for you. Made with plain dark chocolate, this cake takes 15 minutes to prepare and just over half an hour to bake in the oven. You will have to be patient with the cooling, though, as this chocolate cake is best eaten cold. Decorating is a simple task ‑ dust the cake with cocoa powder just before you serve it.
Preparation
Gather three eggs, 200 grams of roughly chopped plain dark chocolate (with not less than 50 per cent cocoa solids), 150 grams of caster sugar, 140 ml of water, 135 grams of roughly chopped or cubed butter, 25 grams of plain flour and cocoa powder for the finishing.
Grease a 23 cm cake tin with butter and line the bottom with baking paper. Place the oven rack in the middle of the oven and another rack just below it. Put a shallow heat-resistant container on the bottom shelf (which will be filled with water just before baking the cake) ‑ and pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
Method
Place the eggs in a bowl and whisk well. Pour the water and sugar into a pot and stir over a medium heat until the sugar has dissolved. Bring the sugar mixture to the boil. As soon as bubbles appear, take the pot off the stove.
Add the chocolate pieces to the sugar mixture and stir until the chocolate has melted. Add the butter and stir until it is well mixed in. Let the mixture rest for five minutes before adding the eggs. Then sift the flour onto the chocolate mix while stirring it in with a whisk.
Place some very hot water into the container on the lower shelf of the oven.
Pour the chocolate mixture into the greased tin and place it on the middle shelf of the pre-heated oven. Set the timer for half an hour – the cake may need a little longer though if the centre is still wobbly.
Remove the chocolate cake from the oven when the cake is firm (use a skewer to test for readiness) and allow it to cool for about five minutes. Then turn the cake out onto a serving plate.
Wrap the cake with plastic cling film when it is cold and then let it rest in the fridge. Serve it very cold but before you do dust the cake with a generous amount of cocoa powder.
Chocolate icing
Try Nigella Lawson’s recipe here or, for a wet-look icing, place 100 grams of chopped plain dark chocolate into a pot. Stir over a low heat until it has melted ‑ add 40 grams of chopped butter then sift in 75 grams of icing sugar.
Stir until everything has incorporated. Remove from the heat and stir in three tablespoons of water (one at a time) until smooth – stir over the heat again if it’s not smooth.
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