a choc cake for celebrating

for special occasions and special people

What I’m reading: I haven’t read anything of note this week, but I do have a very fun recommendation for people based in London: Hackney Wick Community Sauna is a really lovely and affordable spot to go and relax (plus you can get a pint there after)

What I’m listening to: Today in Focus: How Kneecap became the most controversial band in the UK [and Ireland]

What I’m eating: some very good bagels from Kuro in Notting Hill (below)

I’ve had a note on my phone titled “choc cake?” for the past year or so, and every time I’ve made this cake (which is probably about once a month), I’ve tweaked it a little bit more. It’s a very straightforward chocolate cake: nothing complicated, a chocolate sponge of sorts with an icing that is a sort of buttercream/ganache hybrid.

I played around with lots of different chocolate cake methods for one of the recipe tests I did a few years ago (see below), and most seemed to fall into one of three categories: wet into dry, creaming and reverse creaming. I’ve settled on wet into dry for this version because it’s the easiest (no equipment necessary, just a bowl and spoon), and I think it yields the best results.

The ingredients list for this recipe may seem quite long, but everything has a purpose. The cake is leavened by the chemical reaction between the baking soda (alkaline) and the buttermilk (acidic), but I’ve added some extra acid in the form of vinegar because I think it provides a little extra lift, and adds to the depth of flavour. I’ve used two different types of sugar: caster because it’s a little finer/lighter and light brown for an extra dimension that I feel really works with the chocolate. The coffee is essential to complement the chocolate, but it needs to be hot because this causes the cocoa to “bloom”, increasing the flavour even more. The secret added benefit of this is that you can just make a pot of coffee, put one cup in the cake mixture and drink the other cup while you bake. Baking powder and baking soda are also both essential, as the soda will react with the acid but the baking powder is neutral, and helps to leaven the batter all on its own. Butter and oil (with a slightly higher proportion of butter) both add fat, but while butter is tastier, oil is lighter, and the hybrid therefore adds both flavour and texture.

The icing also appears to have quite a lot of ingredients, but it is at its core a buttercream - with a hefty amount of dark chocolate for flavour and crème fraïche for a slightly tangy flavour and to lighten the mixture.

This cake comes together quite quickly: mix the cake, get it in the oven and make the buttercream while it’s baking. You do want it to be fully cool before icing, but you can whack it in the fridge for an hour or so (once it’s cooled outside the oven for about half an hour), or alternatively make the cake the previous day and leave it (wrapped) overnight before icing.

I think it’s quite a forgiving cake as I’ve made it in slightly stressful conditions several times: I got a call at 11am one Sunday (an hour before Sunday lunch service started), asking if I could make a birthday cake for a VIP table that afternoon. All went according to plan, apart from misspelling the name on the cake (totally embarrassing as I’m usually a very good speller). I’ve also made this cake during dinner service twice, both times for staff members’ birthdays which I had forgotten were the following day (and you should always have cake if you have to work on your birthday).

This is exactly the sort of cake I would want for my birthday, although I might dress it up a little by adding macerated cherries between each layer, or perhaps adding a little boozy syrup to each layer while assembling.

recipe: chocolate cake