Dark and sumptuous chocolate cake
Ingredients
For the icing
75g/2½oz coconut butter (this is not the same as oil)
50g/1¾oz soft dark sugar
1½ tsp instant espresso
1½ tbsp cocoa powder
150g/5½oz dark chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa solids), finely chopped
For the cake
225g/8oz plain flour
1½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp fine sea salt
1½ tsp instant espresso powder
75g/2½oz cocoa powder
300g/10½oz soft dark brown sugar
375ml/13fl oz hot water, from a recently boiled kettle
90ml/3fl oz (or 75g/2½oz if weighed when solid) coconut oil
1½ tsp cider vinegar or white wine vinegar
1 tbsp edible rose petals, to decorate
1 tbsp chopped pistachios, to decorate
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4 and pop in a baking sheet at the same
time.
2. For the icing, put all of the icing ingredients except the chopped chocolate into a
heavy-based saucepan and add 4 tablespoons cold water. Bring to the boil, making
sure everything’s dissolved. Then turn off the heat but leave the pan on the hob.
Quickly add the finely chopped chocolate and swirl the pan so that it is all
underwater, so to speak. Leave for a scant minute, then whisk until you have a
darkly glossy icing, and leave to cool. I find this takes exactly the amount of time the
cake takes to make, cook and cool. But do give the icing a stir with a spatula every
now and again.
3. Line the bottom of your springform cake tin (you will need a good, leakproof one as
this is a very wet batter) with baking parchment.
4. Put the flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt, instant espresso and cocoa powder in a bowl
and fork to mix.
5. Mix together the sugar, water, coconut oil and vinegar until the coconut oil has
melted, and stir into the dry ingredients. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 35
minutes. Though do check at the 30-minute mark to see if it is already done. When
it’s ready, the cake will be coming away from the edges of the tin and a cake tester
will come out clean, apart from a few crumbs. This is a fudgy cake and you don’t
want to overdo it.
6. Once the cake is cooked, transfer the tin to a wire rack and let the cake cool in its tin.
Once completely cool remove from the tin.
7. Turn to your icing, and give it a good stir with a spatula to check it is at the right
consistency. It needs to be runny enough to cover the cake, but thick enough to stay
(mostly) on the top. So pour over the cake, and use a spatula to ease the icing to the
edges, if needed. If you wish to decorate, now is the time to do it. In which case,
sprinkle joyously with rose petals and chopped pistachios or anything else that your
heart desires; otherwise, leave it gleaming darkly and, indeed, sumptuously. Leave
to stand for 30 minutes for the icing to set before slicing into the cake.