Baking Sheet For Quadruple Chocolate Loaf Cake

Our answer

Nigella's Quadruple Chocolate Loaf Cake (from FEAST) is a moist, rich chocolate cake that is soaked with a chocolate syrup after baking. The method asks for a baking sheet to be put in the oven while it preheats.

The reason for using a preheated baking sheet is that putting the loaf tin directly on to the hot sheet helps the loaf cake to bake through properly. The batter itself is quite soft, in comparison with a regular loaf cake batter, as it contains both sour cream and hot water (which helps to give a moist cake). As it is more liquid it can take longer to bake through and putting the loaf tin onto a hot baking sheet in the oven helps to boost the heat from the bottom and speed up the baking. The cake itself doesn't rise that much so the risk of overspill is small, but the baking sheet would also catch any overspill if it did happen.