Monday 24 October 2011

Chocolate cream cake with a jammy middle


It seems that round here, chocolate is the theme for the month, what with all of the chocolate containing goodies I made for Chocolate Week, and the preceeding double chocolate ricotta scones (oh so good!) and now this rather delicious chocolate cream cake. I shall have to make some more fruity cakes to balance it all out and make sure my ginger pear cake doesn't feel lonely... what can I say though, I love chocolate.

Anyway, I saw this chocolate cake recipe by Dan Lepard on the BBC website a while ago and was intruiged by the use of double cream in the ingredients. I can always rely on Dan to come up with something I haven't seen before, and I usually want to try them out. In this recipe the conventional amount of butter is replaced by the combination of a smaller amount of butter, a little oil and the double cream, all contributing to the fat content of the recipe but also to the liquid content.


I have to confess that I didn't have exactly the right ingredients in the house, so made a couple of small substitutions. Specifically I didn't have milk, so decided that I would use 120ml double cream plus 60ml water instead of 100ml double cream and 80ml milk. I suppose my cake ended up with a little more fat in it than the original recipe, but not by too much, and the liquid content was the same. I also went a different direction for my filling and topping. You can find the original recipe here, along with a video (next confession - I didn't watch the video before making the cake, but I'm sure it's an excellent video - the BBC ones always are!)

Chocolate cream cake with a jammy middle
Ingredients
100g unsalted butter
250g light muscovado sugar
50ml light olive oil
25g cocoa powder
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 medium free-range eggs
60ml water
120ml double cream
300g plain flour
3 tsp baking powder

For the filling and topping
A 340g jar of your preferred jam, I used blackcurrant
150g 37% cocoa solids chocolate
40g unsalted butter

Method
- Preheat the oven to gas 4/180C. Grease and line a 9"/22cm square cake tin. This was my guess, see rant later...
- Melt the butter over a low heat and then pour into a bowl with the sugar, oil, cocoa powder and vanilla extract. Beat well until smooth.
- Whisk in the eggs followed by the water and double cream. Yay, no curdling or splitting here!
- Sift in the flour and baking powder and mix until smooth.
- Spoon into the prepared tin and level. Cover with foil.
- Bake for 30 minutes covered then remove the foil and continue to bake. The recipe specifies 20 minutes, mine required about 35-40 minutes more, which is a lot extra. After an additional 20 minutes there was still liquid batter on my cake tester, but I was worried that I had overcooked it by leaving it so much longer, and that it would be dry.
- Allow to cool a little in the tin and then completely on a wire rack.

To decorate
- Melt the chocolate and butter together in a small bowl over warm water. Leave to cool a little.
- Split the cake in half, spread the jam over the middle and replace the top.
- Spread the chocolate mixture over the top, smoothing out until evenly spread. I found I had enough for a reasonable layer, not too thick, but not too mean!


Can I take exception with the instructions on the BBC here please... I'm not sure if Dan's original was transcribed properly, but 20cm is not 9", it's 8". 2.5cm = 1inch therefore 20/2.5 = 8. I also want to know if my cake tin is supposed to be round or square.... OK, rant over.

This really was an easy cake to make - melt and mix, my favourite kind!

It was an excellent cake - I needn't have worried about it being dry, it wasn't! The jammy middle and not-too-sweet topping provided a good contrast to the soft, chocolatey cake. I'm glad I tried this recipe - new techniques are always good to try, and this will be a good cake to have in the repertoire. (Much appreciated by colleagues too - I think they quite like chocolate cake!)

13 comments:

Simplyfood said...

This looks really moist and delicious.

MissCakeBaker said...

This looks so moist and delicious.

Kate@whatkatebaked said...

Chocolate is a great theme for the month C! I'm always on the lookout for new chocolate recipes- thank you for writing about your success with this one! Does it feature in Dan's book (currently winging its way to me as I speak!)?

Brownieville Girl said...

Perfect texture - if I had my way I'd eat chocolate cake every day!!

Caroline said...

Simply food, Miss Cake Baker - thanks! It was delicious, wish I had some now!

Kate - Chocolate is always great isn't it! The cake isn't in Dan's book as far as I can see (well, not in the cake chapter as I've just checked that - I think the book is pretty exclusively Guardian recipes, and this one is a recipe he has done for the BBC, I guess there must be copyright issues?). Enjoy the book though, full of fun and interesting things to make!

BVG - yes, that would be excellent wouldn't it!

Suelle said...

This looks like a cake I should be baking. Delicious!

You're so right about the metric conversion - 20cm = 8", but perhaps it doesn't matter if the cake is round or square! :)

Chele said...

Is there anything better in this world than a chocolate cake with a jammy middle! Yum.

Anne said...

Glad the substitutions worked! The cake looks yum, really keen on the nice jammy filling!

Anna's kitchen table said...

Anything with a jammy middle sounds fab! :-D

Anonymous said...

Gorgeous looking cake, C! Your work buddies must love you! :)

Choclette said...

Like chocolate cake? What strange work colleagues you must have ;-) The use of cream mixed with olive oil sounds intriguing - I've used both in cakes before, but never both together. Great looking sponge. I think if a cake shape is not given, 8" usually assumes a round tin.

Caroline said...

Suelle - thanks. I do wish recipe writers would specify properly about tin sizes though - I don't mind using round or square so long as I know what's being expected of me!

Chele - hmmm, possibly not if you're in the mood for jammy chocolatey goodness ;-)

Anne - thanks. I like my jammy fillings!

Anna - thanks!

Celia - I think they do! Well, I hope the moaning about gaining weight is in jest...

Choclette - indeed ;-) I think if I'd used a round tin there would have been too much mixture, even if it was what was expected!

Johanna GGG said...

jammy is such a great word - esp when combined with chocolate - no wonder you had to make it - and I love dan's recipes too - yum

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