Nigella and I

Nigella Lawson is one of those celebrity cooks that polarizes opinions  - people either love her or don't. I'm one of the lovers. I think what I like about Nigella is that she's a true girly-girl, gorgeous and unabashed, not a professional chef and has a love of food and cooking that not all celebrity cooks/chefs exude.  And yet, I never really got that in to her show. I'm not sure why that was - perhaps tricky scheduling or lack of advertising or whatever, but I certainly love her books. My favourite is 'Feast' and was given to me by my sister and brother a few Christmases ago with a book mark in the chapter entitled 'Chocolate Cake Hall of Fame' and strict instructions that I was to work my way through this chapter for their birthdays.

Well this past weekend was my sister's birthday and I could not disappoint. I looked to Nigella's chocolate indulgences for guidance and decided on the 'old-fashioned chocolate cake.' 

I think when it comes to baking, Nigella makes it simple whenever possible. Simple as in you can do it the long way of whisking butter and sugar and eggs, etc, or you can put the whole lot into a food processor and whizz it all up until it looks like cake batter. I've seen her do this on her show to great success. I did the first, but only because I don't yet have a food processor to call my own.  It was still pretty simple!

Everything went as it was described, but then I was a bit surprised when I pulled the two cakes out of the oven as they looked quite flat, and the cake in the picture seemed a lot bigger. Silly me for doubting her! There is enough chocolate icing to put in the middle and everywhere else and this added significant bulk to the end product. I also thinly sliced up some fresh, sweet strawberries and put them in the middle with the frosting. I did this because I had about three punnets in the fridge I needed to use, (still have two left) but also because the icing is so rich that I felt it needed some freshening or risk people being unable to go on once they hit the centre.  Also, they created a lovely scent. 

Don't do what I did with the icing and be impatient for the chocolate mixture to cool. If you do, you'll have the kind of sloppy mess I first created. I saved it with some extra icing sugar but probably just could have waited for it to cool down a bit more. I live and learn...

All in all, I rate this as a simple cake to make, it turned out like the one in the picture in the book, and it went down really well with everyone. The most frequent comment was 'it's really rich' but that didn't stop people from trying for seconds. I think serving with some fresh cream would also work.

The recipe is below, but I've summarized the instructions into a less flowery form as they go over a page otherwise. 

Old-fashioned chocolate cake

p 269, Feast by Nigella Lawson

For the cake:

200g plain flour

200g caster sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarb of soda

40g best-quality cocoa

175g soft unsalted butter

2 large eggs

2 tsp real vanilla extract

150ml sour cream

For the Icing

75g unsalted butter

175g best quality dark chocolate, broken into small pieces

300g icing sugar

1 tbsp golden syrup

125ml sour cream

1 tsp real vanilla extract

sugar flowers, optional

Take everything out of the fridge so all ingredients can come to room temp. Preheat oven to gas mark 4/180C and line and butter two 20cm sandwich tins with removable bases. 

Put all the cake ingredients into a food processor and process until you have a smooth, thick batter. Or do what I did and take the long road by slowing mixing things in...

Divide the batter into the two tins. Cook for about 35 minutes, although start checking at 25 minutes. You may also want to switch the two tins around halfway through cooking time. 

Remove cake in their tins to a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes before turning out of tins. Don't worry about any cracks as they'll be covered by the icing later.

For the icing: melt the butter and chocolate in a bowl in the microwave or over a pan of simmering water. Go slowly either way so to avoid burning or seizing. While this is happening, sieve the icing into another bowl. 

Add the golden syrup to the cooled chocolate mixture, followed by the sour cream and vanilla, and when combined, add the icing sugar. This can be done in a food processor. 

Sit one of the cakes on plate or stand of your choice, domed side down. Spoon about a third of the icing on to the centre of the cake and spread it until even. Sandwich the other cake on top and spread the rest of the icing on top and over the sides. 

Decorate with little flowers or however.