Quadruple Chocolate Loaf Cake

I’m just going to dive in + tell y’all, this cake is AMAZING. First, let me explain the name – it’s called a Quadruple Chocolate Cake because it has 4 different sources of chocolate – a chocolate-based cake, with chocolate morsels mixed throughout, topped with a cocoa syrup, + even more flaked chocolate on top of that. SWOON. I first ate this cake a few months back, when my friend Alexandra made it for a girls’ night party. It was one of the most chocolatey, rich, decadent cakes I’d ever eaten + I couldn’t stop going back for more bites.

So, when my chocolate-loving husband had a birthday last week + he requested, simply, “something really chocolatey” for his birthday dessert, I knew I had to give this cake a try. And surprisingly, it was really easy to make, coming together quickly + easily. The end result is a super rich, sticky, sweet, perfectly chocolatey loaf cake. It is amazing for dessert, topped with ice cream + hot sauce, or as a mid-afternoon pick-me-up, with a cup of tea. And if you love chocolate as much as we do, you *must* put it on your to-make-soon list – you will love it!

Quadruple Chocolate Loaf Cake

serves 8-10, adapted from Nigella Lawson

Ingredients

1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 1/2 cups superfine sugar
1 1/2 sticks soft unsalted butter
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup sour cream
1/2 cup boiling water
1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips

For the syrup:
1 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup superfine sugar
1 oz bittersweet chocolate (from a thick bar)

Directions

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

Preheat the oven to gas mark 325 degrees F, putting in a baking sheet as you do so, and line a 2lb loaf tin (mine measures 9.5″ x 4.5″ x 3″ deep and the cooking times are based on that) with greased foil – making sure there are no tears – and leave an overhang all round. Or use a silicon tin.

Put the flour, baking soda, cocoa, sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla + sour cream into the processor and process till 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 this beautiful batter into the prepared loaf tin and slide into the oven, cooking for about 1 hour. When it’s ready, the loaf will be risen and split down the middle and a cake-tester, or a fine skewer, will pretty well come out clean. But this is a damp cake so don’t be alarmed at a bit of stickiness in evidence; rather, greet it.

Not long before the cake is due out of the oven – say when it’s had about 45-50 minutes – put the syrup ingredients of cocoa, water and sugar into a small saucepan and boil for 5 minutes. You may find it needs a little longer: what you want is a reduced liquid, that’s to say a syrup, though I often take it a little further, so that the sugar caramelizes and the syrup has a really dark, smokey chocolate intensity.

Take the cake out of the oven and sit it on a cooling rack and, still in its tin, pierce here and there with a cake tester. Then pour the syrup as evenly as possible, which is not very, over the surface of the cake. It will run to the sides of the tin, but some will have been absorbed in the middle.

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. Now take your bar of chocolate, wrapped in foil if you haven’t got much of its wrapper left, and cut with a heavy sharp knife, so that it splinters and flakes and falls in slices of varying thickness and thinness.

I’ve specified a weight for the chocolate flakes, but really go by eye: when you think you’ve got enough to scatter over the top of the loafcake, stop slicing. Sprinkle these chocolate splinters over the top of the sticky surface of the cake.

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