Ken's amazing chocolate cake

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The original recipe is from a book called ‘Falling Cloudberries’, which is basically a collection of family recipes. Nothing fancy, but that’s its strength – you couldn’t possibly be scared at trying it out.

Prep time: 30 minutes, tops.

Cooking time: 40-45 minutes, depending on your oven.

Eating time: a few seconds, apparently.


Ingredients:

200g chocolate (I used 70% cocoa solid bars)
250g unsalted butter
100g caster sugar
5 large free-range eggs
150g plain flour
1tbs baking powder
Pinch salt
100ml milk (or brandy)
220g sugar
300g water

  1. Pre-heat oven to 180C, and butter and flour a spring-release cake tin (about 24-26cm-ish – doesn’t matter a huge amount).
  2. In a bain marie, melt chocolate, butter and caster sugar. Stir until you get a lovely smooth glossy chocolate mixture. Dip your finger in, then avoid the temptation to steal any more.
  3. In a large mixing bowl, whisk the eggs until light and fluffy. I had an electric whisk so was able to get the eggs stupidly fluffy, but I wouldn’t stress about it too much.
  4. Slowly pour the melted chocolate mixture into the eggs, whisking while you go. Whisk until the chocolate and egg are fully mixed. At this stage, you can put in 100ml of brandy, or other booze. Since I didn’t have any to hand, I ended up just using milk.
  5. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into the egg/chocolate mixture and mix well using a whisk.
  6. Pour the mix into the cake tin, then bung it in the oven for 40 minutes. (The original recipe said 45 minutes but I found that too long.) Unless you’ve used a stupidly large cake tin, bear in mind that the cake will rise a lot. I didn’t, the first time I made this, and the cake hit the top of the oven.
  7. While the cake’s cooking, boil up the sugar and water for 5 minutes to make a syrup, then leave to cool for the remainder of the cooking time.
  8. The cake’s ready when you can stick a skewer into it and it comes out clean. Stick several holes into the cooked cake using your skewer (or a sharp knife). Leave to cool for ten minutes or so.
  9. When the cake’s cooled, pour the cooled syrup over it, making sure to cover well and letting the syrup runs into the holes you made. This is what keeps the cake moist, and super bad for your teeth.
  10. After the syrup’s made its way into the cake, turn the cake upside down onto a plate, and serve. I was going to do some whipped cream and cherries on top, but was told in no uncertain terms by Polly that fruit has no place near a chocolate cake.

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