Phase III of Chocopalooza! ( I forgot to take a picture of my Chicken Mole so I will post that tomorrow) 🙂 I was really looking forward to trying this cake because I thought it would be something very different, but I think I may have cooked it a little too long because it wasn’t as “squidgy” as I expected. It still tastes good. The chocolate flavour isn’t overpowering and the brown sugar adds a little something extra. I will try this one again and see what happens. Oh, and I did have too much batter so I saved some to try to make sunken chocolate cupcakes tomorrow.
Dense Chocolate Loaf Cake
On creating this cake, Nigella Lawson explains, “I remember very strongly wanting to create what we call a loaf cake — and what is generally called a pound cake Stateside — that had a richness and squidginess of texture that this form of cake normally doesn’t major in.” Recipe adapted very slightly from How to Be A Domestic Goddess (Hyperion, 2005)
Makes 8-10 slices
- 1cup soft unsalted butter
- 1 2/3cup dark brown sugar
- 2large eggs, beaten
- 1teaspoon vanilla extract
- 4ounces best bittersweet chocolate, melted
- 1 1/3cup all-purpose flour
- 1teaspoon baking soda
- 1cup plus 2 tablespoons boiling water
- Heat the oven to 375°F, put in a baking sheet in case of sticky drips later, and grease and line a 9×5-inch 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 and fairly liquid batter. Pour into the lined loaf pan, and bake for 30 minutes. (Note: Don’t let this batter come closer than 1 inch from the rim of the cake pan or it risks overflowing. Pour any excess into a smaller cake or muffin pan.)
- Turn the oven down to 325 degrees and continue to cook for another 15 minutes. 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.
Heather's Homemade 
Wow. You literally copied and pasted this from Food52’s website. You didn’t slightly adapt it – they did. Everything, right down to the “On creating this cake” preamble, is theirs.
As all reputable bloggers do, they not only attributed back to Nigella but paraphrased the method. I guess that would have taken too much effort. At least you attributed to Nigella.
Another dead giveaway that this is a cut and paste is the space issue that occurs when you copy and paste bullets → you didn’t clean it up.
If I noticed, others did too. The last person I called out is actually a published author who straight up ripped off America’s Test Kitchen and claimed it as her own.
I expect better from my fellow Canadians.