Nigella Lawson - Travels for Taste

Decadent Chocolate cake with a delicious coconut flavoured icing

Dreaming of a chocolate cake, baking it, and devouring it, is a common obsession of mine. Also, I had many excuses to bake chocolatey treats, what with Valentine’s just around the corner. Not to mention many other reasons to eat cake following in quick succession after Valentines – my dad and husband’s birthday and our wedding anniversary, woohoo!

With so many occasions all lined up one after the other, a mega celebration was in order. And as we all know any celebration, big or small is incomplete without, yes you guessed right a proper cake.

So my plan was to bake an indulgent and rich chocolate cake and how better than Nigella to look to for a good recipe! Unable to pick a recipe on my own, I asked my neighbour’s adorable 5-year daughter to flip through Nigella Lawson’s book ”Feast” – Food That Celebrates Life. Lucky for me she stopped flipping pages at Nigella’s Old Fashioned Chocolate cake recipe. Better still it is made using only the food processor – so very perfect.

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

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!

Chocolate Coconut Cake

Easy and delicious Chocolate cake recipe

Print Recipe

Prep Time 25 mins

Cook Time 25 mins

Course Dessert

Servings 8 portions

Equipment

Two 8 inch Round cake tins
Food Processor or stand-mixer
Spatula
Measuring spoons
Cake tester or thin skewer

Ingredients

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

Instructions

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 it 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 center 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 the baking tray and leave to cool down on a wire rack

Coconut flavoured Icing

Print Recipe

Ingredients

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

Instructions

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 ?:)

Need more recipe inspiration to get baking?

Why not check out my other recipes here:

Linking this post 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!

My blog post 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 hesitate to and totally avoid. Humm okay, I got off easy this time 🙂

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 is a cake-baking challenge.

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. Like all my previous posts about events and reviews, ALL opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

Last year we had a supermarket pudding , the intense flavours, the dry fruits steeped in alcohol the soft delicious feeling of putting a spoon through a perfectly set pudding on christmas night ummmm… I decided that the next time I MUST make one at home !After sifting through a few recipes I knew it had to be Nigella’s Ultimate Christmas pudding.

I have now promised myself that I shall plan months ahead and soak the sultanas much in advance but well this year I soaked the sultanas and a nut mix for 2 nights in sherry. The variations in ingredients recommended by Nigella are my use of a regular apple, supermarket sherry and a currant and dry fruit mix off a shelf. But the resultant mixture and the process of slow steaming gave me a deep rich colour, a lovely texture and 2 yes two puddings instead of one and that is what was the MOST satisfying part of this process! Landing up with 2 awesome well set perfect puddings , one to eat at home and one to share with a special close pal made christmas special 🙂

Oh yes and a big thank you to Lakeland for making such an awesome product, my pudding steamer with a lid that fits so well and is really easy to clean. The pudding just slipped out after a gentle tap and sigh…. I couldn’t stop admiring the perfect shape, the dark colour …I almost burst into song !

Well now for the list of Ingredients:

150 grams prunes – mine were soaked in syrup and came from a cam but they served the purpose just the same, I squeezed the syrup out before adding them to the sultanas.If yours are out of a packet they need to be snipped into smaller bits.
150 grams sultanas
150 grams currants or a currants and nut mix for puddings available in all leading supermarkets.
175 ml sherry of your choice
100 grams plain flour
125 grams white breadcrumbs
150 grams suet – I used beef suet, if you are considering a vegetarian option I haven’t used vegetable suet , if anyone has tried it please share your experience.
1/4 ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon – I used a ready-made powder
3 medium eggs
150 grams dark muscovado sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 lemon large zest and juice
1 cooking apple (ideally) peeled and grated , I used 2 small red apples.
2 tablespoons honey
125 ml Vodka

Method:

This mixture gives 2 full-sized puddings , I have a 1 litre pudding steamer with lid from Lakeland and I had enough to make two full-sized puddings.
I must say our pudding is still sitting on a plate as I type this on the last day of 2012 , it’s asking to be microwaved and gobbled with some Remy Martin laced cream lying in fridge left over from Christmas, we had it Champagne cream on Christmas day and I assure you we had a feast and some very sleepy house guests after that …yes made me chuckle with satisfaction too.
Mix the sultanas,prunes and currants into a large bowl and let them steep in sherry overnight or upto a week. I let them soak for 2 nights.
When you are to start making the pudding mix take another large bowl and add all the ingredients in any order and then stir in the soaked sultana mix, scooping all of it off from the bowl.
Fill a large saucepan with enough water such that your pudding basin is soaked in it and use butter to grease the pudding bin and the lid as well.
Add the mixture into the basin and steam for 5 hours, checking ever so often and add some water to the saucepan. I must add that my pudding basin lid fits real well and after 5 hours were done it was quite easy to remove the basin from the saucepan and leave it aside to cool . No tying of strings , no foil and no danger of burning, besides like I mentioned cleaning is a breeze.
Keep aside your wonderful pudding which is done now, I peaked inside and it looked so good I had to really take a deep breath and stop myself from turning it onto a plate and start digging right it, but NO it’s meant for the Big Day!
Ok so now on D-day, steam the pud in its basin for 3 more hours, yes I trust Nigella’s recipes and hence the success for me a first time pudding maker 🙂
Well after it has had its steam and had cooled to an extent when you can open it and turn it on to a serving dish , it needs a gentle tap this basin and Viola! a rich dark well set pudding is there for you to admire and show off.
I did not add any charm before I started to steam it and I did not flambe’ it either but by all means use vodka and flambe’ to impress your guests !

Do leave your comments !