Crispy chocolate cake

I'm posting early again this week as am off on more travels for work tomorrow. I've been dodging the snow that's dogged the UK so far and hope my luck holds out and my flight is untroubled!

Now - a trip down memory lane. One of the first things we all probably baked as children were chocolate rice crispie or cornflake cakes. Apart from being easy to make, they taste good!


This recipe harks back to early memories of baking but adds some sophistication too. The chocolate rice crispies are used as a topping for a squidgy, indulgent chocolate cake. The whole concoction uses three bars of chocolate – do I have your attention yet?

My one disappointment with making this recipe is that you are meant to use spelt flour. Spelt is an ancient grain that isn’t wheat based, so people with wheat intolerance find they can often eat spelt with no ill effects. It also has a nutty taste. While the recipe (from a UK national Sunday paper) assured me that spelt flour was widely available I couldn’t find it in any health food store, supermarket or even Borough food market. If I lived way out in the sticks I would accept this, but these shops were all in central London! So I used self raising flour and it worked perfectly.


My other, voluntary, substitution was to use good quality milk chocolate instead of the recommended dark. I often find that dark chocolate can be too bitter and, given the low sugar content of this cake, opted for something a little lighter and sweeter. The cocoa content of the chocolate you use will decide how dark your cake will be – as I used milk chocolate mine is a lighter colour.

You will notice that the topping is falling off my cake – if I made the cake again I think I would double up the amount of chocolate for the topping; it didn’t seem enough to bind the rice crispies together.


Ingredients:
For the cake:
150g dark or milk chocolate (I used Green & Blacks milk which has a 34% cocoa content)
120g unsalted butter
3 eggs
30g refined spelt flour (if you can’t find this use self raising flour)
80g caster sugar

For the topping:
150g dark or milk chocolate (I used milk; next time I would use 300g of chocolate)
40g unsalted butter
1 tablespoon golden syrup
50g rice crispies


How to make:

- Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.
- Grease or line a 20cm springform cake tin.
- Start with the cake: break up the chocolate and melt it along with the butter in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water. The water should not touch the bowl.
- Once you have a glossy runny chocolate mix, remove the bowl from the heat and beat in the eggs one at a time. I used an electric hand whisk to make this easier.
- Fold in the flour and sugar.
- Pour – for it will be very runny – into the prepared cake tin and bake for approx 2o minutes or until the cake feels firm in the centre. As it is such a squidgy cake the skewer test won’t really work. Mine took 23 minutes.
- Leave to cool on a wire rack for at least 30 minutes before adding the topping. I made the cake the day before I wanted it and left it untopped. The topping is best eaten on the day made as it starts to go soggy after that.
- Make the topping: break up the chocolate and melt it along with the butter in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water. The water should not touch the bowl. Stir until smooth then remove from the heat.
- Stir in the golden syrup.
- Stir in the rice crispies and ensure that all are covered with the chocolate mix.
- Spoon over the top of the cake and spread. Press the crispies down at the edge of the cake to stop them sliding off.
- Allow to cool.
- If you’re using dark high cocoa content chocolate it’s an idea to serve this cake with cream. If you’re using milk chocolate it’s nicest on its own, maybe just some icing sugar dusted on the top.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.