When I moved to France, I fully expected to encounter some cultural differences, and indeed I did, and continue to do so. Notably, in the world of food there are dramatic differences in ingredients available, most popular dishes, attitudes to food.
Most surprising are the differences encountered when you think you’re all talking about the same thing. Chocolate cake is a perfect case in point.
Once I had mastered the conundrum of ingredients (which French flour approximated to plain flour, where to get my hands on baking powder and bicarbonate of soda and what icing sugar is in French), I thought I was home and dry. But no.
I had so much to learn about what French people appreciate in a chocolate cake. For a start, the gooier the better. A cake which would be classified as underbaked in the Great British Bake Off (and anywhere else in the UK for that matter) is exactly what is expected here.
But that’s not what I want and, frankly, if I’m going to bake something, it needs to be something I’ll really enjoy too. A couple of weeks ago, I tried a single deep layer of an ordinary chocolate sponge recipe but it dried the edges out too much to cook through. And then I remembered having made Nigella’s chocolate loaf cake many years ago and how damp and delicious it was …
This recipe walks the very fine line of a cake which is unquestionably fully baked through, whilst being damp and squidgy enough to satisfy the French contingent, uniting people from both sides of the (English) Channel.
Icing is not, in general, welcome on cakes in France. The notable exceptions here are a yule log, which is expected to be iced and beautifully decorated, and my step daughter who can and does eat chocolate icing with a spoon, given half a chance.
This cake doesn’t NEED icing but if you want something a little more celebratory than a plain loaf cake, then I highly recommend a layer of this real chocolate buttercream.
Gooey & dark chocolate loaf cake
Tested and approved with ingredients you can buy in France (find muscovado sugar, or ‘muscovabo’ as it might be called, in organic shops or dark muscovado at M&S if you’re lucky enough to live close to one) and barely changed from Nigella’s Domestic Goddess original recipe for a ‘Dense chocolate loaf cake’. The icing is a variation on Nigella’s Yule log icing and makes enough for a generous topping for this loaf cake, plus a little left over.
Ingredients
Gooey chocolate loaf cake
- 100g dark chocolate
- 225g unsalted butter
- 375g dark muscovado sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 200g plain flour
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 250ml boiling water
Chocolate icing
- 50g dark chocolate
- 75g unsalted butter
- 100g icing sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Method
Switch oven on to 190°C and line your loaf tin.
Melt the chocolate and leave to cool slightly.
Cream the butter and muscovado sugar, preferably with a freestanding mixer or electric beaters, then add eggs and vanilla and beat in. Fold in the chocolate.
In a separate bowl, weigh out the flour in mix in the baking soda. Measure out the boiling water too.
Gently mix spoonfuls of the flour, alternating with splashes of the boiling water, into the chocolate batter until fully incorporated. The mixture will be very runny – don’t be alarmed!
Pour into the lined loaf tin and pop in the oven for an initial 30 minutes. Turn the temperature down to 170°C and leave in for a further 15 minutes.
Take the tin out of the oven and leave to on a cooling rack until completely cold. It will sink in the middle.
If you want to ice your cake, melt the dark chocolate and leave it to cool whilst you cream the butter and icing sugar. Then beat in the molten chocolate and vanilla extract and smooth the icing onto the top of your marvellous gooey & dark chocolate loaf cake.