Dense Chocolate Loaf Cake

The other day I became a Domestic Goddess. I didn't set out to become one, it just sort of happened after I baked a fabulously dense, decadently rich, yet surprisingly easy cake from Nigella Lawson's cookbook, How to Be a Domestic Goddess. I was in a crisis, I needed comfort food and on the very cover of Nigella's book it says: "Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking" so you know I was all over that cookbook trying to find just the right recipe. I was in desperate need of a project to take my mind off the crisis at hand and since I have always found baking to have a calming effect I picked up Lawson's book. I also needed to cram fattening baked goods into my gaping maw bake a lovely treat for my little family.

The crisis came about as a result of a terrible haircutting experience. You see, I have spent the last couple of years not getting my haircut because the one person who always did a fabulous job cutting my hair moved away leaving me stranded (pun intended), because of her abandonment (yes YOU Mariella sniff, please come back), my very curly hair became very long and quite unruly, my friends started calling me Sideshow Bob. I didn't care what they called me, Sideshow Bob, Hair Won't Lay Flat, She Who Must Put A Comb Through Her Hair, what did they know about curly hair and bad hair seasons, they had blissfully straight hair that never gave them problems. Anyway, these days I don't have the time it takes to make nice with my do what with taking care of Little Miss and working part-time so I finally got a haircut…sadly though, it was a very bad haircut. It's really my own fault, I waited too long, I should have taken my time to look at different salons and interview haircutters, but by the time I finally decided I couldn't stand another minute of my messy head I just blindly walked into a salon and let them choose a haircutter for me, stupid, stupid, STUPID. So I became a Domestic Goddess as a result of my disastrous haircut because I needed to drown my sorrows in comfort food, but not just any old kind, I needed comfort in the form of chocolate cake and I needed it BAD. I look like Roseanne Rosanndanna now, do you blame me for wanting to crawl under the bed to cry and eat cake?

This is a terrific cake, delicious and easy to make, and like Nigella suggests, it really is much better the next day, if you can bring yourself to wait, but if you can't, it tastes really good fresh from the oven too. This cake is such a treat that I suggest using the best quality chocolate you can afford, it really turns this into something even more special and makes it the kind of recipe that becomes a family tradition or a signature cake.

From How To Be A Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson

Dense Chocolate Loaf Cake

• 1 cup soft unsalted butter
• 1-2/3 cups dark brown sugar (MH5 note: the recipe didn't specify whether to pack the brown sugar tightly or not but I did)
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 ounces best bittersweet chocolate, melted
• 1-1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons boiling water
• 9 x 5-inch loaf pan

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F, put in a baking sheet in case of sticky drips later, and grease and line the loaf pan. The lining is important as this is a very damp cake: use parchment or one of those loaf-pan shaped paper liners.

Cream the butter and sugar, either with a wooden spoon or with an electric hand-held mixer, then add the eggs and vanilla, beating in well. Next, fold in the melted and now slightly cooled chocolate, taking care to blend well but being careful not to overbeat. You want the ingredients combined: you don't want a light airy mass. Then gently add the flour, to which you've added the baking soda, alternately spoon by spoon, with the boiling water until you have a smooth fairly liquid batter. Pour into the lined loaf pan, and bake for 30 minutes. Turn the oven down to 325 degrees F and continue to cook for another 15 minutes. (MH5 note: all ovens vary, I know mine is most certainly off by 25 degrees so for me this cake took closer to an hour to bake.) The cake will still be a bit squidgy inside, so an inserted cake tester or skewer won't come out completely clean.

Place the loaf pan on a rack, and leave to get completely cold before turning it out. (I often leave it for a day or so: like gingerbread, it improves.) Don't worry if it sinks in the middle: indeed, it will do so because it's such a dense and damp cake

Makes 8-10 slices

Written by Deb on February 3, 2005 12:58 PM