Feast: Food that Celebrates Life
Old-Fashioned Chocolate Cake
Page 269
Cuisine: English/Scottish | Course Type: Cakes
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Recipe Reviews
Sovay from Northern England,
I wish I could give two different star ratings here. The cake itself is excellent: really easy method and would have been easier still if it hadn't turned out that my food processor is about half the capacity of Nigella's. However I processed the dry ingredients with the butter (eta - the butter needs to be cold for this to work - soft butter clumps together instead of blending with the dry ingredients), tipped the result into a bowl, briefly processed the eggs, sour cream and vanilla until blended and mixed them in, and it turned out fine - great taste and texture and bears out my conviction that cocoa powder makes just as well-flavoured a cake as melted chocolate with a lot less trouble and worry.
The icing/frosting does use melted chocolate and is a lot more trouble for a lot less reward - far too sweet. The taste of sugar completely overwhelmed the chocolate; next time I make this cake I shall try a classic ganache instead.
So the cake gets 5 stars, icing gets 1 making an average of 3.
eta: Ganache is definitely the way to go. I found 200g chocolate (I used Bourneville as I've found the best quality dark chocolate can produce a ganache just the wrong side of bitter) and 200 ml cream was enough for a generous filling and coating for the top only. 250 of each would probably be needed if the sides are to be coated too.
(edited 23rd June 2013) (0) comment (1) useful
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