Those Cakes We Like ... Have Abandoned Their New Year's Resolution Already

It's healthy if it has fruit in it, right?

So much fruit... surely my healthy eating pledge can remain intact?

Who am I kidding. All the raspberries in the world won’t make this recipe move into the healthy column. But you don’t come to me for health food, do you?

Join me, as I ditch the New Year’s Resolution to eat healthy, the times demand that we drown ourselves in delicious, chocolatey goodness. Coincidentally, this cake would also make an excellent treat for a loved one this Valentine’s Day. This month I’m getting a little help from Paul Hollywood; his version of this classic cake features prominently in the opening credits for The Great British Baking Show/The Great British Bake-Off, and was actually featured in the technical challenge in a recent series of the show. It’s a fairly easy cake to bake, and, luckily for you, I don’t expect you to go up against the clock when you bake it. It is, of course, the famous raspberry topped chocolate fudge cake (missing raspberry is optional, although easily achieved if you’re baking in a house with children or teenagers present). There was no way I wasn’t going to bake this cake for you at some point, considering my Bake-Off related ambitions. Speaking of ...

A Little Slice of History

The Great British Bake-Off remains one of the most popular reality shows on British television, with this year’s series being the 17th since the show premiered in August 2010. The presenters have changed over the years, with the initial run on the BBC hosted by Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins, with Paul Hollywood and Dame Mary Berry as the judges.

The format has remained largely unchanged throughout the history of the show, although there has been the addition of themed weeks which vary from season to season. These themed weeks have been restricted in recent years after the stereotypes portrayed in some of the episodes (most notably the use of ponchos and sombreros in a Mexican themed episode, and the inclusion of various Asian recipes in a week which was described as “Japanese themed”) were deemed to be disrespectful to the countries being represented. Various other controversies have emerged during the many seasons of the show: most notably the controversial Fridgegate episode of 2014 in which a contestant’s Baked Alaska was removed from the fridge by another competitor and left on a bench to melt, one of relatively few seemingly deliberate acts of sabotage during what is usually a very positive, supportive show.

Another aspect of Bake-Off which seems to be uncommon in the world of reality TV is that participation in the show is not seen as a shortcut to fame and fortune — the winner of each series is presented with a commemorative cake stand and a bouquet of flowers. That’s it. There is no cash prize and guarantee of celebrity status. There have been occasional contestants who have gone on to find a degree of fame as a result of Bake-Off, but for every Nadiya Hussain there are dozens who disappear back into obscurity. Contestants are more likely to seek to open their own bakery than host a cooking show following their appearance on the show, and even that is a relative rarity. This may well be why Bake-Off remains so popular as it approaches its seventeenth season.

Oh, and joining the lineup this year ... it’s only Nigella Lawson: one of the most famous TV cooks in the world, no stranger to kitchen innuendo, and extremely popular with the male audience for some reason. It looks like soggy bottoms and Paul’s various animal related innuendos will have some serious competition going forward.

Today’s cake is a variation of the famous Bake-Off cake with its iconic missing raspberry, I found the chocolate ganache from the original recipe was less than ideal when it came to coating the cake and have replaced it with a chocolate whipped cream which is easier to work with, although it lacks the glossy finish of the show’s signature cake.

This cake will serve 16, so the carbohydrates, for those of us who are members of the Dead Pancreas Society, are 54.6 g per portion, or 873.6 g for the whole cake.

Your Equipment

Digital kitchen scales

Bain marie or heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water

Hand whisk

Large mixing bowl and whisk, or stand mixer

Small bowl for weighing ingredients

Sieve

Palette knife (the blunt edge of a dinner knife will work if you don’t have a palette knife)

2 x 20cm / 8 inch cake tins

Baking paper

Wire cooling rack

Spoon

Your Ingredients

For the sponges

175 g good quality (60% or more) Dark Chocolate

150 g unsalted butter

125 ml Hot Water

3 Medium Eggs

125 ml Sour Cream (at room temp.)

50 ml Oil (vegetable is best but any mild tasting oil will work)

2 tsp Vanilla Extract

150 g Sugar

150 g Light Brown Sugar

250 g Self-Rising / Self-Raising Flour

50 g Cocoa Butter

1 ½ tsp Baking Soda

¼ tsp Salt

Frosting and decorations:

300g Dark Chocolate (60% or more)

450 ml Heavy Whipping Cream

1 tbsp Sugar (optional, depends on how bitter your chocolate is)

400g Fresh Raspberries

The Important Bit

Firstly, preheat your oven to 350F / 180C and prepare your cake tins by lightly greasing them with a little butter and lining them with baking paper. If you have silicon cake pans then you can get away without greasing and lining them.

Place the dark chocolate (175 g), butter (150 g), and hot water (125 ml) in a heat proof bowl and place this over a pan of simmering water. Keep stirring until the chocolate and butter have melted and then give them a whisk to combine them. You should have a thick, glossy chocolate mixture. Set this aside to cool slightly.

Set your chocolate mixture aside to cool while you prepare the eggs and sour cream.

In your large mixing bowl or stand mixer, combine the eggs (3), oil (50 ml), sour cream (125 ml), and vanilla extract (2 tsp) and whisk using a balloon whisk. Add the sugar (150 g regular, 150 g light brown) and whisk until smooth. Now add the chocolate mixture and whisk again until smooth.

Sift your flour (250 g), cocoa powder (50 g), baking soda (1 ½ tsp), and salt (¼ tsp) into the chocolate and egg mix and give it a good whisk until it forms a thick, smooth cake batter. Divide this between your cake tins and level the top with a palette knife or the back of a spoon. Bake in the oven for 30 – 40 minutes (insert a wooden skewer to check the cake is fully baked at 30 mins, if not, return to the oven for 5 mins and repeat the test).

Make sure to check your cake after 30 minutes, I originally left it for the full 35 and it ended up a little bit overbaked.

Once the cakes are baked, set them aside to cool in the tin for 10 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack to cool fully.

Give your large mixing bowl / stand mixer and the heatproof bowl a wash as you’ll need them again in a minute.

To make the chocolate frosting, melt the dark chocolate (300 g) with the butter (25 g) in the heatproof bowl over the pan of simmering water. Mix together until smooth and glossy.

You'll want to see a real shine when you mix your chocolate and cream together.

In your large bowl / stand mixer, combine the heavy whipping cream (450 ml) and the chocolate and butter mixture and whisk until it thickens to a buttercream frosting consistency. If you want to make the traditional Bake-Off version of this cake, do not whisk the chocolate cream, simply mix with a spoon until you have a smooth and shiny chocolate ganache.

Place roughly 4 heaped tablespoons of chocolate frosting or ganache between the two sponges (place the top sponge upside down so that the top of the cake is smooth). Use the remaining frosting or ganache to cover the outside of the cake and smooth with a palette knife or the blunt edge of a dinner knife. You can feather the frosting if using a fork if you’ve whisked it, then all that’s left to do is to place the raspberries on top of the cake by placing the centre raspberry first and then spiralling out to the edge.

You don't have to remove the raspberry, if you have children in the house they'll probably do this for you.

Give yourself a round of applause and cut yourself a generous slice of cake – you’ve earned it.

It's delicious served with cream.

And don’t forget to join me next month, I’ll be baking a deliciously refreshing lemon and raspberry tart. It has fruit in it, so it’s healthy, right? Right?

Until then,

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