Chocolate Loaf

 

Well, did everyone watch the Great British Bake Off final? I won’t give away any spoilers here but I loved this series and was delighted for the winner. I had a day off on Wednesday so I decided I had to make a cake to have while watching the final. I wanted something simple and I was thinking brownies, but I have to be honest, I have yet to be convinced that brownies are as great as everyone makes them out to be. So I remembered seeing this Everyday Chocolate Cake on the Smitten Kitchen blog by Del Perelman. I love the way she has a whole section on everyday cakes – it’s like permission to eat cake all the time!

After scratching my head converting from cup measurements, I came up with the recipe below. I use less sugar and the original recipe stated light brown sugar, but I used dark brown sugar to give a richer taste. Make sure to use really good cocoa powder, it does make a real difference. I use Valrhona or Green and Blacks. It’s a very simple but rich, dark loaf, perfect with a cuppa!

 

Makes 10 slices

 

Ingredients:

• 110g unsalted butter softened
• 150g soft dark brown sugar
• 100g caster sugar
• 1 large egg
• 250ml buttermilk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 180g plain flour
• 75g good cocoa powder
• ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• ½ tsp baking powder
• ¼ tsp salt
• Icing sugar to decorate

Method:

• Preheat your oven to 170c/150c fan/gas mark 3.
• Butter and lightly flour a 2 lb loaf tin.
• Cream the soft butter for a few minutes with a mixer. Then add the sugars and continue to beat until the mixture is fluffy. That will take about 8 minutes.
• Add the egg and beat well before adding the buttermilk and vanilla. Continue to beat the mixture.
• The original recipe says that it may not look like it will come together, I’d go so far as to say it looked curdled! It does come together though, I assure you.
• Sieve the flour, cocoa powder, bicarb of soda, baking powder and salt into the wet mixture.
• Fold everything together just until it is combined, you don’t want to over-mix cake batter.
• Scrape the batter into the prepared loaf tin and bake for 60-70 minutes. Mine took the full 70 minutes but check after an hour. The cake is done when a skewer comes out clean.
• Allow it to cool for 15 minutes in the tin before turning it out onto a cake rack to continue cooling.
• Dust over some icing sugar before serving and if you want to fancy it up, serve with some whipped cream or vanilla ice cream and berries.

Click here for the print friendly version – Chocolate Loaf – A Cookbook Collection