When one has a chocolate cookalong, one of his or hers dessert must consist of a serious amount of Chocolate. And who better to turn to than Nigella. She is a goddess when it comes to kitchen treats, and let me just tell you, this one is no different… I’m glad I waited this long to make it because it’s impossible not to eat. Ask Jennifer and Julie who helped me polish it off when still fresh. And Mary had some on its 2nd day and still enjoyed it? I am showing you a photo, one of the last from my poor burgled camera…
Is that not appetite inducing?! I’m telling you, it’s a good thing I’m making it tomorrow for a reason, or I’d have to think one up. Most yummy yummy cake.
So this is
Devils Food Cake with Cocoa Nib Icing and Spun Sugar…
(Adapted from Nigella Lawson’s ‘Kitchen’)
You will need:
- 50g good quality cocoa powder
- 100g dark muscovado sugar
- 250ml boiling water
- 125g soft unsalted butter
- 150g caster sugar
- 225g plain flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 eggs
For the icing
- 125ml water
- 30g muscovado sugar
- 175g unsalted butter, cubed
- 300g best quality dark chocolate chopped finely – Here I used a 73 % claudio corallo cocoa nib chocolate along with some 74% I had lying around
What to do:
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Grease and line 2 20 cm sandwich tins.
- Put the muscovado sugar and cocoa in a jug, add the 250 ml boiling water, give it a good whisking so that it’s mixed, and then set aside.
- Cream the butter and the sugar until pale and fluffy. Warning, not the best therapy when using wooden spoon and recovering broken wrists. Still though, worth it!
- Sieve the bicarb, baking powder and flour into another bowl and stir to mix evenly.
- Then add the vanilla slowly to the creamed butter and sugar whilst still mixing.
- Still mixing, add in one egg, a scoopful of flour, the other egg, and ev just mixedentually all of the rest of the flour.
- Finally, add your sugar/cocoa mixture and give a good stir, incorporating fully
- Divide evenly between your two tins, and pop in preheated oven for 30 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool.
Ok icing time straight away! (Possiby my favourite time of the day)
- Put the water, muscovado sugar, and butter into a pan and melt over a low heat
- When this mixture bubbles, remove from heat, add your chopped chocolate and give it a minute to begin it’s melty journey, and then whisk until smooth and glossy.
- Ahem:
- Leave in a cool place for about an hour. This took me 2 as my apt was quite warm, but thats ok.
- When it’s a spreadable consistency and your cakes are cool, taste to test (yumyum) and use about 1/3 to sandwich the two cooled layers together. Spread the remaining icing over the top and sides of the cake.. It should look something like this…
Cut a generous slice, serve with cream and rasberry coulis if you wish, it works!
I dream of cake…?
Oh, and as you can see, I made some spun sugar to decorate this (it was that kind of day I think) and to do that I melted about 4 tablespoons of sugar and about a tablespoon of water and put over a high heat until it turned golden. I then gave it a second to cool and become gooey, and made the nest. I got a fork and drizzled the (burning hot) sugar syrup over the handle of the saucepan and it formed weblike strands. I, rather quickly, shaped it into a ball type nest phenomenon.
For the other arty looking bit I got two teaspoons and dragged the sugar between them until it formed a thickish strand. For control I broke off the piece from one spoon and guided it around the cake like you see. The trick was to pull evenly, there’s an odd bit where I pulled too slow and its a bit thick. But all in all for my first time making it, I was happy with it!
I tried to make spun sugar once when I was about 11. My parents were out of the house. I blame my reading of cookbooks and high expectations. The hardened sugar on the saucepan was slightly panic inducing when your parents are due home in 30 minutes and it’s not budging. I boiled some water in it and it got rid of most of it, but I hid the pan until I got it cleaned properly. Oh and the sugar itself was a fail! Ah the joy of being 11. When I didn’t burn the house down it was a miracle. But starting early seems to have stood to me.. See?
Cake in the country 
Oh my, this looks amazing! I need a great chocolate cake recipe for cupcakes next week, this might be the one 😀 I do usually like to use melted chocolate in my cakes for that really dense texture though. Chocoholic? Moi?
I must admit, this cake is dense. It’s absolutely amazing if you cut a slice and melt it in for a few seconds so that some of the icing is just starting to pool around the base. There’s a photo of the inside here: https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/NTSFVnvHGkYx-9WfRaFgoxV-o1c5YH5_280zEtV2MqM?feat=directlink
So it’s dense but still cakey. Try it out and let me know what you think if you do 🙂 I’m in love with it.
This is seriously impressive! My little boy has requested a chocolate cake for his birthday in a few weeks, might be just the excuse I need to give this one a try…
I think any excuse is a good one. I’m off down to make another one right now!
Ooooh it does look both dense and cakey! Thursday is cake day, I’ll report back 😉
Cake day. I do rather like the sound of cake day. Debating adding it to my week. Who needs tuesday!
Would you like some cake with your chocolate madame???? That is super chocolatey esp with the nibs too.
That photo of you cooking is just the biz. I was oohh’ing at the cake; then I had an little ‘ah look at that’ at the last photo. Nice touch!
As a fellow chocaholic you understand my quest for the most chocolatey baked goods is never at an end!
Thank you, I love that photo. I remember baking that day too, I ended up making ‘play dough’ i.e. it was inedible. Mum was making rock buns or else scones I do believe! Probably scones. I think what I like about it is the exact same equipment in mini!
So lovely. The spun sugar makes for a photographers dream. I might have to get the Chef to give this one a whirl and considering he is a chocolate addict there might be no arm twisting needed.
Hope you are having a lovely Easter.
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I can confirm the deliciousness of this cake, though I made a different icing and plastered Hello Kitty all over it. Lovely rich, chocolatey, moist sponge – thanks for sharing!
(You can see my take on it here: http://rocksaltuk.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/hello-kitty-cakes)
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