Can I Make The Chocolate Guinness Cake Into A Loaf Cake?

Our answer

Nigella's Chocolate Guinness Cake (from FEAST) is a damp and sticky cake topped with a "head" of whipped cream cheese frosting. It is a single-layer cake but it does cut into 12 or more slices. The cake is baked in a 23cm (9-inch) springform tin.

It is possible to make the cake into a loaf version and smaller loaf cakes would be preferable as the baking time on a large loaf cake would be quite long. A 23cm springform loaf tin has a volume of approximately 2.5 litres (10 cups). Unfortunately, loaf tins tend to vary a bit in size and dimensions but we have made the recipe into two loaf cakes. Our 450g (1-lb) loaf tins have the internal dimensions of 17cm (6 3/4 inches) long x 12cm (4 3/4 inches) wide x7.4cm (2 3/4 inches) high and with a volume of approximately 1.3 litres (5 1/4 cups). The cake tins are quite full, so if your loaf tins are smaller than this then you may need to split the mixture between 3 tins. We use a paper loaf liner in the tin or we suggest lining the pan with baking parchment (parchment paper) with paper coming up the sides of the tin. The oven temperature should be reduced to 170c/150c fan/325F and the loaf cakes should take around 35-45 minutes to bake. The cake should be risen and firm on top and a cake tester inserted into the centre should come out with some damp crumbs attached (but not uncooked cake batter). Leave to cool in the tins before lifting the cakes out using the lining paper. The frosting is enough for a layer on top of each loaf cake, though we tend not to ice the loaf version of the Chocolate Guinness Cake.