The last chocolate fudge cake has already had a couple of outings which is enough … time to look for another.
Having a couple of recipes up your sleeve is useful so you don’t bore people with the same cake all the time … and you never know, the next recipe may be better. This recipe comes from James Martin’s Desserts*. James Martin’s cake recipes rarely disappoint but my first attempt at this little number was not entirely successful – the chocolate fudge topping ended up rock hard, unspreadable and, frankly, pretty tasteless. I suspect the problem was with me and my handling of the hot sugar and evaporated milk mix. One day when I’m feeling brave I’ll have another go. In the meantime, the cake itself is still good and I came up with a clever work around for filling and topping.
The cake itself contains wholemeal flour so you can even pretend it’s healthy.
Grease and baseline a 20cm springform tin and preheat the oven to 170°C bake (not fan).
Cream 175g of unsalted butter with 175g of soft brown sugar. Measure out 175g of wholemeal self raising flour and remove one heaped tbsp of flour. Replace with 1 heaped tbsp of good quality cocoa and add 1 heaped tsp of baking powder before mixing with the butter and sugar. Add 3 large eggs.
The mixture is likely to be a little stiff so add a splash of water … Martin doesn’t give any exact quantities here but you are aiming for a mixture that plops off a spoon knocked against the edge of the bowl or mixer. Not too stiff but not a runny batter either … Of course, add extra water slowly and carefully because you can’t undo it if you add too much!
Bake the cake for 40 – 45 minutes (in my oven, 40 minutes is perfect) – until a skewer comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool in the tin for a few minutes and then tip out on to a rack.
To finish the cake, cut in half and fill with jam (raspberry, of course!) and whipped cream and top with ganache. We used the ganache from the earlier chocolate fudge cake recipe, but made in half quantity – so about 100g of dark chocolate, 50g of butter (melted together) with about 70mL of thick cream beaten through.
Ganache suffers from the heat so you may have to refrigerate the cake, but if you can avoid it it is better left at room temperature.
*Also available from Amazon UK
