Chocolate Fudge Cake

Wow. This cake is a HUMDINGER. A humdinger is every way possible - size, taste and of course calories!

I was looking for a good cake to make for Mr M's birthday as I make him one every year and realised I hadn't made a chocolate cake in quite a while so me and the little lad set about make Daddy a cake. I selected this recipe which is a Nigella Lawson recipe as it sounded delicious. Of course being a Nigella recipe it's completely laden with fat and sugar and therefore terribly bad for you but it also tastes delicious.

It makes a cake of titanic proportions, standing rather tall and proud it definitely gives the wow factor though naturally my icing left a lot to be desired. What can I say I prefer the rustic look...and I'm all about the taste. Substance over style, that's me all over.  Also I totally sifted that icing and beat the crap out of it but it still had lumps of icing sugar as you can see on the picture. Que sera, sera.

Nigella uses corn oil in the original recipe but I couldn't find this locally so substituted for vegetable oil and it was fine.  The recipe method involves using a stand mixer but this can be as easily knocked up by hand using good old elbow grease or a hand mixer.

I will say that this cake can work out quite costly, certainly it would have been cheaper just to go buy a lovely cake but that wouldn't have been as fun would it?

Chocolate Fudge Cake

Ingredients

400g plain flour

250g golden caster sugar

100g light brown muscovado sugar

50g cocoa powder 

2tsp baking powder

1tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/2 tsp salt

3 large eggs

142ml soured cream

1tsp vanilla extract

175g unsalted butter (melted & cooled)

125ml vegetable oil

300ml chilled water

For the icing;

175g dark chocolate (min 70% cocoa solids)

250g unsalted butter, softened

275g icing sugar, sifted

1 tsp vanilla extract

Method

Preheat the oven to 180c/gas mark 4. Butter and line the bottom of two 20cm sandwich tins.

In a large mixing bowl, mix together the flour, sugars, cocoa, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt.  In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, soured cream and vanilla until nicely blended. 

Using your stand mixer, beat together the melted butter and oil until just blended, then beat in the water. Add the dry ingredients to the stand mixer bowl and mix on a slow speed. Add the egg mixture and mix again until everything is blended and then pour into the ready-prepared tins. 

Bake the cakes for 50-55 minutes, until a cake tester/skewer comes out clean. Cool the cakes in their tins on a wire rack for about 10 minutes before turning them out and leaving them on the rack to cool completely.

To make the icing, gently melt the chocolate in a bowl sitting over a pan of simmering water and let it cool slightly. In a separate bowl or on the stand mixer, beat the butter until it's soft and creamy and then add the sieved icing sugar and beat again until everything is light and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract and the melted chocolate and gently mix everything together until it is glossy and smooth.

Sandwich the middle of the cake with about a quarter of the icing and then ice the top and sides, spreading and smoothing the icing with a palette knife or rubber spatula.

The cake turned out really well. The recipe produces a scrumptious moist cake that slices beautifully and feeds an army!