Nigella Lawsons Rococoa Cake Food

QUADRUPLE CHOCOLATE LOAF CAKE

Steps:

• Take whatever you need out of the refrigerator so that all ingredients can come room temperature.
• Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F, putting in a baking sheet as you do so.
• Put the flour, baking soda, cocoa, sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla, and sour cream into the processor and blitz until a smooth, satiny brown batter. Scrape down with a rubber spatula and process again while pouring the boiling water down the funnel. Switch it off, then remove the lid and the well-scraped double-bladed knife and, still using your rubber spatula, stir in the chocolate chips or morsels.
• Scrape and pour the batter into the prepared loaf tin and put into the oven, cooking for about 1 hour. When ready, the loaf will be risen and split down the middle and a cake-tester will pretty well come out clean.
• Not long before the cake is due out of the oven (when it has had about 45 to 50 minutes), put the syrup ingredients of cocoa, water and sugar into a small saucepan and boil for about 5 minutes, to give a thick syrup.
• Take the cake out of the oven and sit it on a cooling rack, still in the tin, and pierce here and there with a cake tester. Pour the syrup over the cake.
• Let the cake become completely cold and then slip out of its tin, removing the foil as you do so. Sit on an oblong or other plate. Sprinkle the chocolate splinters over the top of the sticky surface of the cake

DENSE CHOCOLATE LOAF CAKE - NIGELLA LAWSON

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 190C/gas5. Grease and line a 23x13x7cm cm (9x5x3in) loaf tin. Cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs and vanilla, beating in well.
• Next fold in the melted and cooled chocolate, taking care to blend well but do not overbeat.
• You want the ingredients combined: you don't want a light airy mass. Gently add the flour, to which you've added the bicarb, alternately spoon by spoon, with 250 ml of boiling water until you have a smooth and fairly liquid batter.
• Pour into the lined loaf tin and bake for 30 minutes. Turn the oven down to 170C/gas mark 3 and 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.
• Plaace the loaf tin on a rack and leave to get completely cold before turning it out. It improves if left for a day or so before eating. This cake will probably sink in the middle because of its denseness.

NIGELLA LAWSON FLOURLESS CHOCOLATE ORANGE CAKE

Steps:

• Put the whole orange or oranges in a pan with some cold water, bring to the boil and cook for 2 hours or until soft.
• Drain, and when cool, cut the oranges in half and remove any big pips.
• Then pulp everything - pith, peel and all - in a food processor.
• Preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180°C Butter and line a 20cm springform tin.
• Add the eggs, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, almonds, sugar and cocoa to the orange in the food processor. Run the motor until you have a cohesive cake mixture, but slightly knobbly with the flecks of puréed orange.
• Pour and scrape into the cake tin and bake for an hour, by which time a cake tester should come out pretty well clean. Check after 45 minutes because you may have to cover with foil to prevent the cake burning before it is cooked through, or indeed it may need a little less than an hour; it all depends on your oven.
• Leave the cake to get cool in the tin, on a cooling rack. When the cake is cold you can take it out of the tin. Decorate with strips of orange peel or coarsely grated zest if you so wish, but it is darkly beautiful in its plain, unadorned state.

NIGELLA LAWSON CAKE AND FROSTING

Steps:

• Take everything out of the refrigerator so that all ingredients can come room temperature.
• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
• Put all the cake ingredients: flour, sugar, baking powder and soda, cocoa, butter, eggs, vanilla, and sour cream into a food processor and process until you have a smooth, thick batter. If you want to go the long way around, just mix the flour, sugar and leavening agents in a large bowl and beat in the soft butter until you have a combined and creamy mixture. Now whisk together the cocoa, sour cream, vanilla, and eggs and beat this into your bowl of mixture.
• Divide this batter, using a rubber spatula to help you scrape and spread, into the prepared tins and bake until a cake tester comes out clean, which should be about 35 minutes, but it is wise to start checking at 25 minutes. Also, it might make sense to switch the 2 cakes around in the oven halfway through cooking time. Remove the cakes, in their tins, to a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes before turning out of their tins. Don't worry about any cracks as they will easily be covered by the frosting later.
• To make this icing, melt the chocolate and butter in a good-sized bowl either in the microwave or suspended over a pan of simmering water. Go slowly either way: you don't want any burning or seizing.
• While the chocolate and butter is cooling a little, sieve the confectioners' sugar into another bowl. Or, easier still, put the icing sugar into the food processor and blitz to remove lumps.
• Add the corn syrup to the cooled chocolate mixture, followed by the sour cream and vanilla and then when all this is combined whisk in the sieved confectioners' sugar. Or just pour this mixture down the funnel of the food processor onto the powdered sugar, with the motor running.
• You may need to add a little boiling water, say a teaspoon or so, or indeed some more confectioners' sugar, depending on whether you need the frosting to be thiner or thicker. It should be liquid enough to coat easily, but thick enough not to drip off.
• Choose your cake stand or plate and cut 4 strips of baking parchment to form a square and sit 1 of the cakes, uppermost (i.e. slightly domed) side down.
• Spoon about 1/3 of the frosting onto the center of the cake-half and spread with a knife or spatula until you cover the top of it evenly. Sit the other cake on top, normal way up, pressing gently to sandwich the 2 together.
• Spoon another 1/3 of the frosting onto the top of the cake and spread it in a swirly, textured way (though you can go for a smooth finish if you prefer, and have the patience). Spread the sides of the cake with icing and leave a few minutes until set, then carefully pull away the paper strips.

NIGELLA LAWSON'S ROCOCOA CAKE

Steps:

• If you're going to make your own cake, proceed as follows. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180°C Butter and line the bottom of a 23cm springform tin.
• Sift together the flour and cornflour, and add the cocoa, pushing it through a sieve. Whisk the separated yolks with half of the sugar - you can judge this by eye - until the mixture becomes pale and moussey.
• In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt until firm, then whisk in the remaining sugar, one spoonful at a time, until you have gleaming white peaks.
• Gently fold the yolk mixture into the whites, and then add the flour, cornflour and cocoa, folding gently again until combined. Pour this moussey liquid into the tin and bake for 30 minutes. The cake will be almost silicon-springy on top. Unclip the tin and let the cake cool on a rack, right side up.
• Meanwhile, to make the syrup, bring the sugar and water to a boil in a small saucepan and let it bubble for a scant minute before taking the pan off the heat and adding the coffee or espresso powder made up with water, and the rum. Stir - just with a fork or anything - pour the hot syrup into a jug or bowl and let it cool.
• To make the filling, put the yolks, sugar and rum into a bowl that will fit over a saucepan of barely simmering water. Whisk (I use a hand-held electric mixer for this) until the mixture has thickened airily and then lift the bowl off the pan and let it sit on a cold surface while you whisk for another few minutes to help it cool down. Don't agitate yourself too much about whether it's thick enough or not: as long as it has thickened, the marscarpone and cream will give it the right texture to fill the cake with later.
• Make sure your rum-zabaglione mixture is pretty well cool before whisking in the mascarpone. Softly whip the cream in a separate bowl and beat or fold that into the filling as well.
• To assemble the rococoa cake, cut the cake you made into thin vertical slices, that's to say as if you were slicing a round loaf of bread rather than a cake. If using the bought loaf cakes, cut into slices along the length of the cakes, as thinly as you can. Don't worry about breakages: you are, after all, able to wodge everything together with the syrup in the tin. So: brush a 23cm springform tin with some of the syrup and then layer a third of the sliced chocolate cake, laid horizontally, to line the bottom of the tin. Brush again with the syrup to dampen the cake and seal the joins.
• Spread the layer of chocolate cake with half of the zabaglione using a rubber spatula and a light hand to coat evenly, and then add another layer of cake slices to cover.
• Dribble again or brush with the syrup until the cake is damp as before, and then spread over the final half of the filling.
• Cover with the final third of chocolate cake slices and drip, pour or brush over the syrup to give the cake a smoothish layer, which can be iced later; if the cake is damp, there's no call to drench it. And if the top of the cake is quite wet, don't be tempted to use all of the syrup; the bought chocolate cake is often damper and denser (and needs less syrup) than the homemade cocoa-sponge.
• Put the cake, covered with clingfilm, in the fridge overnight to set. You can ice the cake ahead of your dinner party and put the cake back in the fridge again (though see the caveat in the final paragraph below), but do let it set overnight first.
• To make the icing, put the sugar, syrup, rum and espresso powder into a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Turn off the heat and add the chopped chocolate, swirling it around so that the chocolate melts in the hot liquid. Leave for a few minutes and then whisk everything together in the pan (just using a little hand whisk) to make a smooth shiny glaze. Moving quickly, spring open your tin, taking care with the sides as the cake will be damp and delicate; you might want to run a small spatula around the inside first.
• Sit the cake on a plate or stand (don't even think of trying to loosen it from the tin's base) and pour over the icing, not worrying if it dribbles down the sides too much. You may need to ease it over the top of the cake while it is still malleable. It will set quite quickly - the fridge will have made the layer it sits on very cold - and you will ruin the finish if you try and spread the icing after your initial pouring.
• Scatter with gold sprinkles, nibbed or chopped pistachios, wafer roses, sugar flowers or any other decorations of your choice. The glaze will dull a little if you put it back in the fridge, so on the whole it's best to ice the cake and decorate it about 20 minutes before you want to eat it, or just before you sit down to dinner.