I was having a bit of  ”Nigellisma” attack on Tuesday ,if thats possible!I have been planning on baking an indulgent and rich chocolate cake.Also after reading Ren’s post  where prompted by Dom’s Random Recipes challenge,Ren baked a Vegan Chocolate Cake using a recipe for Affinities Cake from the book titled Rococo,,  I asked my neighbours 5 year daughter to flip through Nigella Lawson’s book ”Feast” – Food That Celebrates Life, lucky for me she stopped at  Nigella’s Old Fashioned Chocolate cake  recipe ,made using only the food processor – so very perfect.

Besides no better way to bring in Valentines week than by baking a decadent chocolate cake with hints of coconut flavour and adding some coconut flavoured icing on the top.I love Nigellas original recipe which I have (dared to!) modify as I wanted to I had been thinking of ways to use the lovely samples sent to me by Sugar and Crumbs .

And what great timing I say with Valentines , Hubby’s birthday and our wedding anniversary all lined up one after the other! Such a mega celebration calls for a grand cake – at least 🙂

I have modified the original recipe by using three medium sized regular eggs ,thick yogurt instead of sour cream, and have reduced the quantity of ingredients for the icing because I am not a big fan of slathering a very thick layer of sugary icing in between the layers nor am I very fond of a huge layer of icing on the top but I guess even after reducing the quantities of ingredients for the icing I still managed to get lots to smother the cake with.I have used Sugar and Crumbs flavoured cocoa powder in Chocolate Coconut and Sugar and Crumbs flavored natural icing sugar in coconut  flavour, result – a perfectly balanced taste of coconut without being overpowering. So am calling my cake – ”Chocolate Coconut Cake with Coconut flavoured Icing”.For the remaining part  the original recipe is perfect, basic,simple and therefore beautiful as it is foolproof and even a novice can get an excellent delicious, fluffy and intensely chocolatey cake – very satisfying indeed! Thank You Nigella!

Serves: 8 Preparation Time:25 mins  In the Oven:25 mins

Ingredients – cake:

• 200 grams plain flour
• 200 grams caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 40 grams Sugar and Crumbs flavoured cocoa powder in Chocolate Coconut
• ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 175 grams soft unsalted butter
• 3 medium sized eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 150 ml thick set yogurt

Ingredients – icing :

• 50 grams unsalted butter
• 125 grams best quality dark chocolate (broken into small pieces)
• 225 grams icing sugar
• 100 ml sour cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method:

• Sift the plain flour through a sieve into a large mixing bowl.
• Add the caster sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda and bicarbonate of soda.
• Mix well with a spatula and transfer into the food processor.
• Crack the eggs into the mixture, add the vanilla essence and the yogurt and mix roughly with a spatula before running the food processor to ensure that the loose flour doesn’t fly all over the place. For the first 30 seconds I lightly covered the chute of the processor with my palm to prevent the flour from flying out in a mist . Now this is the reason I want a Kitchen Aid 😉
• After an initial spin , use the blunt edge of the knife to scoop out what stuck to the walls of the processor and mix well with the cake batter.
• Don’t worry if you think the batter is very thick ,another spin for about a minute should give you the required consistency to ”pour” into the cake tins.

• Grease two removable base 8 inch tins with butter and equally divide the cake batter into each tin.
• Preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180°C/350ºF
• Bake for 25 minutes and then test the centre of the cake with a cake tester or thin skewer.
• My cakes were done in 25 minutes but you may need up to 30 minutes depending on the type of oven. The cakes rose beautifully but the top had cracks. The icing was there to save the day and make the cake look pretty.
• Remove cakes from baking tray and leave to cool down on a wire rack.
• While the cakes are in the oven prepare the icing by mixing together all the ingredients of the icing ,the original recipe calls for adding golden syrup but I totally gave that a miss. Why? Because I had already borrowed some butter, some yogurt, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda from my very patient neighbour H 😉 – yes, yes she did get a large portion of this cake 🙂
• Now to ice the cakes place the slightly domed part of one cake face down and slather icing on the flat part and place the other cake flat side down on the icing and then slather icing all over the cake.
• I had some pretty pink and white sugar stars which I used to decorate my cake.

I have also been sent Sugar and Crumbs Coffee Flavoured icing sugar and a pack of salted caramel powder, maybe cupcakes need to be baked next ?:)

Happy Valentines Day – just realised its past midnight ! If like me you haven’t yet figured out what you can do for that special someone in your life ,maybe its time to send them a cute little surprise they can see through the day on their phone or email , something I haven’t done in a long long time, send an e-card!

Greeting Games is  a digital greeting card combined with a casual game.  It’s a really fun way to send eCards to people, and the brilliant thing is it works on smartphones as it’s not Flash-based.The site, which works seamlessly on all devices from tablets to PCs and smart phones, also has greeting games for numerous other occasions including birthdays and “just for fun.”As the sender, you get to choose the occasion, choose the game and then tweak various options including adding a personal message to the recipient. After February 11, customers will be able to send up to two greeting games for free.Think of it if you will as a new way to communicate their love and affection with tailored casual games and in-game messages.

I have been meaning to link with the Tea Time Treats challenge hosted by Karen who blogs at Lavender and Lovage ,for sometime now, finally am getting around to doing just that.The theme for February is – you guessed it  – CHOCOLATE! This cake is definitely gorgeous enough to be served as dessert and as a rather special tea time treat and with such a mega celebratory week for us I couldn’t think of anything more apt 🙂 This challenge is co-hosted on alternate months by my lovely blogger friend Jane who blogs at The Hedgecombers.

Thanks to Ren, I found about all these wonderful recipe challenges that I will be linking to for the first time.My recipe is being  linked to Dom’s Random Recipes event hosted by Dom who blogs at Belleau Kitchen , where for February the challenge is to  select any chocolate-themed recipe book and to make a randomly selected recipe from that book.The idea of this recipe challenge is to make us home chefs step outside our comfort zones and make something that we would otherwise hestitate to and totally avoid. Humm ok I got off easy this time 🙂

Also linking to the We Should Cocoa event hosted by Choclette who blogs at Choc Log Blog  where the challenge is to use an ingredient and that ingredient is chocolate – how apt for Valentines, and with all that gorgeous dark chocolate this cake certainly qualifies!This month, Dom has also joined forces with Choclette,result –  two round ups at the end of the month instead of one and two great challenges linked to make one mega event– what fun!

Another first – entry into Nayna of Simply Food’s Lets cook sweet treats for Valentine.Also for the first time. I’m  joining in with Jibber Jabber’s Love Cake first ever event where the theme for the month of love BAKING WITH PASSION and this is a cake baking challenge.

Above Joint events image courtesy Ren

Since I did bake this cake on Tuesday am linking it with Anyonita’s Tasty Tuesday’s Blogging Party – !

Disclaimer: With many thanks to Sugar and Crumbs for the generous amount of samples to test and review.I was not required to write a positive review and was not compensated monetarily for this post.Greeting Games has offered me a 2 month free subscription in exchange for supporting the launch of their e-card games.Like all my previous posts about events and reviews, ALL opinions expressed here are entirely my own.