Old-fashion Chocolate Cake (Nigella Lawson)

I remember seeing this recipe at first in Nigella's book, How to be a Domestic Goddess as Sour Cream Chocolate Cake with Sour Cream Icing. In this book, Nigella said this is the only chocolate cake that her daughter likes... maybe due to her sophisticated taste. I reckon that Nigella's daughter is so lucky to have Nigella as her mum and no wonder that she has such sophisticated taste... LOL! My son loves this chocolate cake too but this doesn't mean that he has sophisticated taste... LOL! He loves this cake mainly for this creamy sugary chocolaty icing...

This recipe appears in another Nigella's book, Feast again as Old-fashion Chocolate Cake being the first chocolate cake in her chocolate cake hall of fame. As described by Nigella, this cake does has the essence of a good chocolate cake. It is indeed melting, luscious and mood-enhancingly good... in quite a nice balance without being overly rich. Personally, I think the icing is little too sweet for me but my son has gone crazy with it!

It is true that this cake is very easy to bake and assemble... You can either use a processor to blitz all ingredients together or use an electric mixer to mix the batter.. An "old-fashioned grandma me" prefer to use my electric mixer to do this job... LOL! It is so simple and there is no drama at all for me baking this cake.

After icing this cake, I have a few tablespoonful of icing leftover... As I was walking toward to the bin with the leftover, I can sense two pairs of eyes tailing my action. Then, the little one dashed up to me... 

"Mummy, don't throw this away! I need to lick it!" Sophisticate? Never... LOL!

My Nigella's Old-fashion Chocolate Cake

Making the chocolate cake batter - easy peasy!

Baking the cake

Making the sour cream icing... Yum!

This is my chocolate cake with chocolate icing. Good enough to be in the chocolate cake hall of fame?

Ooh la la... definitely a yes for me!

Here's the recipe mostly adapted from the book, Feast by Nigella Lawson
(with my notes in blue)

For the cake:

100g plain flour
100g caster sugar
3/4 tsp baking powder
20g cocoa (I used Dutch processed)
80g soft unsalted butter
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
75ml sour cream

For the icing:

30g unsalted butter
80g best quality dark chocolate
(I used Callebaut chocolate with 70% cocoa)
150g icing sugar
1 tbsp golden syrup
1-2 tsp boiling water
60ml sour cream
1 tsp vanilla extract

Make sure all ingredients are taken out from the fridge so that they can come to room temperature. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180°C or 160°C fan forced. Butter two 14 cm round cake ring and place them on a baking tray lined with baking paper.

In Nigella's recipe, she places flour, sugar, baking powder and bicarb (replaced by baking powder), cocoa,  butter, eggs, vanilla and sour cream into the processor and blitz them all till a smooth batter. Alternatively, she suggests the traditional way of creaming and this is what I did: Cream butter, sugar, egg and vanilla extract until well-combined. Stir in sour cream and sift in flour, baking powder and cocoa. 

Divide the batter into the prepared tins and bake for 15-18 mins until a cake tester comes out clean. Let the cakes to cool for about 10 mins and remove them from the tins to cool completely on wire rack.

To make this icing, melt the butter and chocolate either in the microwave or over a pan of simmering water. Sift in icing sugar into the chocolate mixture when it is slightly cooled. Instead of adding boiling water to adjust the consistency at the last stage, I choose to add boiling water at this stage to mix in the icing sugar more effectively into the mixture and also to minimize the sugary gritty taste within the mixture.

Add the golden syrup to the cooled chocolate mixture, followed by the sour cream and vanilla. Mix them all when and use boiling water again to adjust its consistency only if it is necessary.

Choose your cake stand or plate and cut out four strips of baking parchment to form a square outline on it. Then sit one of the cakes with its dome side down and spoon about a third of the icing on to the centre of the cake half and spread with a knife or spatula until you cover the top of it evenly. Sit the other cake on top with its dome side up, pressing gently to sandwich the two together.

Spoon another third of the icing on to the top of the cake and spread it in a swirly, textured way. Spread the sides of the cake with the remaining icing and leave a few minutes to set, then carefully pull away the paper strips.

Note: The amount of ingredients used as mentioned above is half of the original recipe published in Nigella's book, Feast. The original recipe uses 2 x 20 cm round cake tins and suggests baking the larger cake at 180°C for 25-35 mins.

Happy Baking

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