Quadruple Chocolate Loaf Cake

By Addie

This cake is not named for the bypass you might feel you'd need after eating it, but in honour of the four choc-factors that comprise its glory: cocoa to make the cake; chocolate chips or morsels to fold into it; a chocolate syrup to drench it once out of the oven; flakily sliced dark chocolate to top it before slicing.

I love this for tea, even for weekend breakfast, or late at night when its melting squidginess tends to fall darkly on to my white sheets - and I don't care. It's always wonderful as a pudding: put it on the table, ready to slice, alongside a bowl of strawberries and another of creme fraiche.

Episode: Food to Go
Recipe courtesy Nigella Lawson

Ingredients

• CAKE:
• 1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup cocoa
• 1 1/3 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 sticks soft unsalted butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon good-quality vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup boiling water
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips or morsels
• ..........................................
• SYRUP:
• 1 teaspoon cocoa
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 ounce of dark chocolate (from a thick bar if possible), cut into splinters of varying thickness, for garnish
• ..........................................
• Special equipment: 2-pound loaf tin (approximately 9 1/2 by 4 1/2 by 3 inches deep), lined with greased foil, pressed into the corners and with some overhang at the top. Alternatively, substitute a silicon loaf tin, no foil lining necessary.

Details

Servings 10
Preparation time 20mins
Cooking time 80mins
Adapted from cookingchanneltv.com

Preparation

Step 1

Take whatever you need out of the refrigerator so that all ingredients can come room temperature.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F, putting in a baking sheet as you do so.

Put the flour, baking soda, cocoa, sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla, and sour cream into the processor and blitz until a smooth, satiny brown batter. Scrape down with a rubber spatula and process again while pouring the boiling water down the funnel. Switch it off, then remove the lid and the well-scraped double-bladed knife and, still using your rubber spatula, stir in the chocolate chips or morsels.

Scrape and pour the batter into the prepared loaf tin and put into the oven, cooking for about 1 hour. When ready, the loaf will be risen and split down the middle and a cake-tester will pretty well come out clean.

Not long before the cake is due out of the oven (when it has had about 45 to 50 minutes), put the syrup ingredients of cocoa, water and sugar into a small saucepan and boil for about 5 minutes, to give a thick syrup.

Take the cake out of the oven and sit it on a cooling rack, still in the tin, and pierce here and there with a cake tester. Pour the syrup over the cake.

Let the cake become completely cold and then slip out of its tin, removing the foil as you do so. Sit on an oblong or other plate. Sprinkle the chocolate splinters over the top of the sticky surface of the cake.
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REVIEWS: (63)

Cannot recommend highly enough! A real winner, and a firm favourite with family and friends. I didnt bother with the choc syrup & glad I did as its good enough to stand on its own as very moist and chocolatey. Keeps really fresh for days and just gets better.

This is an excellent and easy recipe for chocolate cake. It is so decadent and a chocolate cake lovers dream. I beg my husband to finish it so I don't have the temptation in the house. I highly recommend this recipe.

This is an excellent and easy recipe for chocolate cake. It is so decadent and a chocolate cake lovers dream. I beg my husband to finish it so I don't have the temptation in the house. I highly recommend this recipe.

Just made this last night...I kept the temp at 325* but added 20 min. to the bake time. I made the chocolate syrup with just 5 min. to go in baking. I had mine at a rolling boil for a solid 5 min. It reduced by half, no crystallization. I added vanilla and chocolate extracts after I removed it from the heat and poured over my punctured cake. Covered with bittersweet shavings and let it sit overnight, in the pan, to cool. It's perfect...moist, dark, rich. I used a dark cocoa powder and 64% Ghiradelli large baking chips (twice the size of normal chips. They did not sink at all. I did not use a processor though. I dumped everything into a large bowl and used my hand mixer on the highest setting until everything was incorporated, drizzling the hot water in last. This could not have been easier. Using dark cocoa powder and chips offsets the sweet syrup, as well as any additional sauces or ice creams.

I saw this cake made on TV and -being a chocoholic- I had to make it. It is a very easy cake recipe and my kitchen smelled wonderfully chocolaty. My husband absolutely loved it, said it was the best chocolate cake I ever made. Unfortunately, I wasn't too impressed by it. It tasted very one dimensional. Still, being a favorite and easy to make, I'll try to experiment with it. Maybe instead of the chocolate syrup I'll pour coffee over it, or do an orange-chocolate combination. It did take an extra 7 minutes to bake (the recipe does give an estimation, but as it cooled, it sort of caved in a little along the middle. Also, if you wait (as the recipe suggests until the cake cools to sprinkle the chocolate on top, it won't stick to it as the syrup gets hard. Also, the syrup didn't thicken for me, even though I boiled it a lot longer. The cake did stay moist, but it just tasted like something I could get at any grocery store's bakery.

Just baked this cake and it looks so beautiful! Just like Nigellas, I sprinkled a few pecans on top before baking and did not use the syrup but I would make it again in a minute. Had to adjust baking to 1 hour and 30 minutes at 325 degrees.

This was my second Nigella recipe. I was really happy with the results; I cooked the cake longer as most suggested. My cake was a little crumbly, I'll chalk that error up to me since I've only done box cakes prior to this. I wasn't concerned with the presentation anyways. The taste was fantastic, and I got thumbs ups all around. Hopefully, I can figure out my baking error. So I can start taking this to potlucks, since you can make this ahead of time.

I like this cake for it's simplicity. I made it last night in the food processor as the recipe stated, and it burned out the motor of my machine (OK, it WAS 25 yrs old..... Made it again tonight in the stand mixer by first creaming the butter with the sugar, then adding in everything else. Not sure why the processor was preferred in the original recipe to begin with. I didn't think the glaze added anything special - too sugary and not chocolaty enough. I'll make a fudgier one for the next one.

Took 25 minutes longer to bake. Maybe 325 is not the right conversion? Was great cake tho.

Mine took an extra 15 minutes to bake. The only thing I didn't like was the "syrup" - maybe I boiled it too long but it almost immediately crystallized when it hit the cake, leaving a crunchy coating instead of a sticky one like I was expecting. The cake was lovely - moist, tender crumb, not too sweet but still chocolatey. Good quality ingredients is a must - I used a good brand of chocolate chips and good Dutch processed cocoa powder. Next time I would either skip the syrup or go all out with a chocolate ganache. I love that this makes just one loaf-sized cake, rather than having a big cake sitting around.

I wanted something very chocolaty and this is it!!!! Excellent recipe. I used a stand up mixer and it worked out fine. I just whipped butter, then added eggs, sour cream, blended well. Separately mix all dry ingred. & sifted them then added slowly to wet. thoroughly mixed then slowly added boiling water, and folded in chips. worked out great!

I read several review -- both positive and negative -- before making this cake. What most impressed me most was the fact that absolutely nobody was ambivalent about it -- either they hated it or they loved it! That fact alone made me decide to try it. I, too, made a few changes -- milk chocolate does not exist in my world, so I only used dark chocolate. The cake was a complete hit, with everybody who has tasted it simply raving about how wonderful it is!

This cake is so moist and delicious. I did add 1 TB of oil to the recipe, this makes it very moist. I baked the cake in a bundt pan for 1 hour, make sure to butter the pan really good, it won't stick. I removed the cake from the pan about 10 minutes after taking it out the oven. Plopped right out! I then used some caramel sauce and poured it over the top.

I am an experienced baker, but this cake was a total failure. The taste was horrible, too sweet. The cake itself was too dry, although I tried to save it with double amound of the syrup and about a hundred holes to make it absorb the syrup better. None of my friends wanted to eat more than the first bite.

Every phase of this cake is amazing...I never considered myself a chocoholic but found that I could not get enough of this cake...smelling the cocoa and nibbling the chips for the mix, inhaling the dark chocolate aroma as it baked and the chocolate syrup that bubbled on the stove and got poured into the poked holes after it cooled off, and of course the ultimate chocolate bliss bite of all that together! I made it for the office today and it was a hit!

I added a 2nd tsp. of cocoa to the syrup, which made it taste a little more like dark chocolate. You want to bring the sides of the foil around the pan up after it is done cooking to catch the syrup as you drizzle it on the loaf. After the syrup set, I was able to pick the loaf up by the foil, take it out of the loaf pan, and set it on a cooling rack (in the foil still so it could cool faster. I served it with coffee ice cream . . . Wow!

Despite the amount of chocolate, it’s not overly sweet, thanks to the use of dark chocolate. It’s a wetter, stickier sort of bread though, so I think of it as the loaf version of these brownies. Hands down though, it’s truly delicious enough to make people go mum for a few moments. Which is really why it’s even more ideal for any sort of awkward holiday party you might find yourself at this season. Enjoy!