VEGETARIAN CHOCOLATE CAKE, A LA NIGELLA, An Indulgence, Egg free ,Vegetarian, Vegan

Wow!  What a Terrific Chocolate Cake, Whether Or Not You're Vegetarian or Vegan  (No eggs or icing sugar.  Butter only if you want it.) Includes Wheat-free version.

An Adaptation of Nigella's Vegan Chocolate Cake
'Amazingly good. Almost like a ganache; dark and unusual.' Tasters 

This vegetarian cake is the bees' knees.  It's wonderful. Unlike many vegetarian/vegan cakes it doesn't involve esoteric ingredients like beetroot or avocado -- it's just a good old-fashioned cake cake!

The original recipe asks for coconut oil and coconut butter, both of which are beyond most people's budgets and are also scarily high in saturated fat.  Nigella recommends using vegetable oil and veggie margarine instead.  67 used sunflower oil in the cake and butter in the icing, and also reduced the amount of sugar. 


It's quite easy to put together.  You don't need a mixer or beater, though good arm muscles are an advantage.  67 found a handheld electric whisk lightened the load.        

Dark and sinfully delicious, the cake's only possible improvement would be to replace a few tablespoons of liquid in the icing with brandy.  67's followers may find the amount of icing -- fabulous though it is -- generous; the amount is easily reduced by a third.

Whatever changes you make, this cake is a wonderful indulgence.  It was tested on friends and the reaction was enthusiastic. Small portions are recommended.

Cost: £3.00'ish
Feeds: 10-14

Ingred:

Icing 

  
  60ml cold water

  75g butter or veggie margarine in cubes

  50g soft dark sugar

  1½ teaspoons instant espresso

  1½ x 15ml tablespoons cocoa

  150g 70% dark chocolate, finely chopped

  handful coarsely chopped pistachio or other nuts

Cake 

   
   225g plain flour

   1½ teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

   ½ teaspoon fine sea salt

   1½ teaspoons instant espresso powder

   75g cocoa

   260-300 g soft dark brown sugar

   375ml hot water, from a recently boiled kettle
   1 tsp vanilla

   90ml sunflower or light vegetable oil

   1½ teaspoons vinegar 

1  24cm round springform  tin

1 baking sheet

Method:

Icing

1. Put all icing ingredients except chopped chocolate and butter into a heavy-based saucepan.  Bring to the boil & simmer until all sugar is dissolved (there shouldn't be any grittiness if you put your finger in it).  
2. Turn off heat and, without removing pan from hob, add finely chopped chocolate.  Stir; leave for a minute.
3. Whisk until glossy; add butter and beat in.  Cool. 
4. Stir with spatula occasionally.

Cake

1. Preheat oven to 350f/180C/gas 4 and put in a baking sheet at the same time. 
2. Line springform tin with baking parchment  (Put in a large square and gently press it against the bottom and up the sides, carefully pleating some of the sides to fit.  Staple pleats together or sellotape on the side facing the tin.)  
3. Mix flour, bicarb, salt, espresso & cocoa in lge bowl 
4. Mix sugar, water, oil and vinegar in a separate bowl.  Add to dry ingred.  Mix well with a whisk or electric beaters.
5. Pour into prepared tin
6. Bake 30-35 mins.  It's ready when cake comes away from the tin and a cake tester comes out relatively clean.  It's a fudgy cake; don't overdo the cooking.  
7. Let the cake cool in its tin on a wire rack 
8. Stir icing with a spatula.  It should be runny enough to cover the cake, but thick enough to sit on top. 
9. When the cake is completely cool, remove the sides of the springform pan.    Cut or tear the greaseproof paper down to the bottom edge until no greaseproof is visible but do not remove the base layer; the cake is VERY delicate.  
10. Pour icing over the centre of the cake; ease icing to the edges with a spatula.
11. Sprinkle with chopped nuts or hundreds and thousands.
12. Leave to stand 30 minutes before sliding cake onto a serving platter.  

Tips:

• 67 also made this cake with 100% wholemeal spelt flour and it was even more gloriously fudgy than the original.  The wholemeal flour reduces GI.  
• The recipe makes a large cake but will keep 5 days.  It also freezes well wrapped in a double layer of cling film and then foil. 
• For a smaller cake, reduce ingredients by 1/3, or halve the recipe.  Reduce cooking time by 5-10 mins

Comments from a meeting of local political activists:
"Amazing -- very dark."
"Very good!  Not too sweet and slightly bitter.
"Almost like a ganache; moist."
"Rich and light; quite unusual."

                               Adapted from Simply Nigella, published by Chatto & Windus, £26. 

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This recipe has been developed by B  Lee/ Bright Sun Enterprises and may not be reproduced, in any form, without the author's written permission.