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QUADRUPLE CHOCOLATE LOAF CAKE

QUADRUPLE CHOCOLATE LOAF CAKE

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Makes: 10 generous slices

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  • Nigella Recipe
  • Vegetarian

This cake is not named for the bypass you might feel you'd need after eating it, but in honour of the four choc-factors that comprise its glory: cocoa to make the cake; chocolate chips or morsels to fold into it; a chocolate syrup to drench it once out of the oven; flakily sliced dark chocolate to top it before slicing.

I love this for tea, even for weekend breakfast, or late at night when its melting squidginess tends to fall darkly on to my white sheets - and I don't care. It's always wonderful as a pudding: put it on the table, ready to slice, alongside a bowl of strawberries and another of creme fraiche.

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Ingredients

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for the cake

  • 200 grams plain flour
  • ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
  • 50 grams cocoa powder
  • 275 grams caster sugar
  • 175 grams soft unsalted butter
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 80 ml sour cream
  • 125 ml boiling water
  • 175 grams dark chocolate chips (unless you prefer milk)

for the syrup

  • 1 teaspoon cocoa powder
  • 125 ml water
  • 100 grams caster sugar
  • 25 grams dark chocolate (from a thick bar)
FEAST

As featured in

FEAST

Method

  1. Take whatever you need out of the fridge so that all ingredients can come to room temperature.
  2. Preheat the oven to gas mark 3/170°C/325ºF, putting in a baking sheet as you do so, and line a 900g / 2lb loaf tin (mine measures 21 x 11cm and 7.5cm deep / 9½ x 4½ inches and 3 inches deep and the cooking times are based on that) with greased foil - making sure there are no tears - and leave an overhang all round. Or use a silicon tin.
  3. Put the flour, bicarb, cocoa, sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla and sour cream into the processor and blitz till a smooth, satiny brown batter. Scrape down with a rubber spatula and process again while pouring the boiling water down the funnel. Switch it off then remove the lid and the well-scraped double-bladed knife and, still using your rubber spatula, stir in the chocolate chips or morsels.
  4. Scrape and pour this beautiful batter into the prepared loaf tin and slide into the oven, cooking for about 1 hour. When it's ready, the loaf will be risen and split down the middle and a cake-tester, or a fine skewer, will pretty well come out clean. But this is a damp cake so don't be alarmed at a bit of stickiness in evidence; rather, greet it.
  5. Not long before the cake is due out of the oven - say when it's had about 45-50 minutes - put the syrup ingredients of cocoa, water and sugar into a small saucepan and boil for 5 minutes. You may find it needs a little longer: what you want is a reduced liquid, that's to say a syrup, though I often take it a little further, so that the sugar caramelizes and the syrup has a really dark, smokey chocolate intensity.
  6. Take the cake out of the oven and sit it on a cooling rack and, still in its tin, pierce here and there with a cake tester. Then pour the syrup as evenly as possible, which is not very, over the surface of the cake. It will run to the sides of the tin, but some will have been absorbed in the middle.
  7. Let the cake become completely cold and then slip out of its tin, removing the foil as you do so. Sit on an oblong or other plate. Now take your bar of chocolate, wrapped in foil if you haven't got much of its wrapper left, and cut with a heavy sharp knife, so that it splinters and flakes and falls in slices of varying thickness and thinness.
  8. I've specified a weight, but really go by eye: when you think you've got enough to scatter over the top of the loafcake, stop slicing. Sprinkle these chocolate splinters over the top of the sticky surface of the cake.

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  • I tried the quad chocolate loaf cake and it's scrumptious, absolutely super - thanks Nigella, you're great. Anne.

    Posted by Cereda on 9th Jun 2011 at 15.57

  • This loaf is perfect in every sense. I bake it almost every week just to have it whenever. Its a bit too plain for a dinner party but its a gorgeous cake to have morning to midnight.

    Posted by hashini on 25th Aug 2011 at 12.31

  • this is the most amazing cake ever! and so easy to make.

    Posted by tashandmaddie on 11th Sep 2011 at 23.11

  • I baked the caked a couple of times and both cakes where sunken in the middle. The reasons for a loaf cake to collapse in the middle are for example: 1. Too much of a rising agent is used; 2. Too much sugar; 3. Too much liquid. So what could be wrong? The following modification will deal with the issue: ? 150 g dark muscovado sugar ? 25 g potato starch ? 6 g baking powder ? 3 medium eggs Please note the following: Bicarbonate of soda is an aggressive rising agent and baking powder is gentler. Starch is added in commercial readymade cake mixtures available in the supermarkets. Escoffier also used starch for a couple of his recipes.

    Posted by Repunsel on 20th Oct 2011 at 14.30

  • Nigella, you are a genius! it's heavenly! I'm a VERY beginner baker and hubby thought it was fantastic! Thanks Nigella.

    Posted by xen_w on 28th Aug 2012 at 16.11

  • this cake was so quick and easy to make, it tastes amazing, will make it again. thank you for such a amazing quick and easy recipie

    Posted by judithshelley on 16th Oct 2012 at 18.25

  • Made this last night and am amazed how good it is! Since I do not have a weighing scale I did my own conversion to cups and tbsps and it worked wonders. Didn't attempt preparing the chocolate syrup and dark chocolate flakes as topping, was skeptical due to the estimated measurements. after 7 failed attempts at making chocolate cake (other recipes) this accomplishment feels like getting a PhD!!!

    Posted by nineplus on 24th Oct 2012 at 14.53

  • I'm a novice to cooking/baking and as my first cake ever i followed the Madeira loaf cake recipe (which turned out lovely!) and just now made the Quadruple Chocolate loaf cake (second cake ever) and can i tell you it has turned out DIVINE... your recipes are so perfect that it makes a beginner like me feel like a professional...and for a career mom turned stay at home mom recently, this is just what i need to feed my ego and feel just as empowered in the kitchen as i was in the office... THANK YOU NIGELLA !!!

    Posted by GirlFantabulous on 23rd Nov 2012 at 4.09

  • I've made this a few times now. It's a stunning cake! So chocolatey and rich. Also, very simply put together. I make it when friends are visiting, because it's not faffy, but very impressive and delicious. I love it :-)

    Posted by skeeterdani on 31st Dec 2012 at 18.02

  • This recipe is pure four star. Apart from the suggestions already made I have also used it as the basis of Nigella's Tiramisu Layer Cake (Christmas book) and Chocolate Cherry Trifle (Feast) instead of shop bought loaf cakes - terrific!

    Posted by djsyclopz on 19th Jan 2013 at 10.31