Chocolate Fudge Cake

Ingredients

• 260 g plain flour
• 80 g cocoa powder
• 350 g caster sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 240 ml hot strong coffee
• 240 ml buttermilk
• 150 ml vegetable oil
• 2 eggs
• 250 g dark chocolate, chopped
• 250 ml double cream
• 1 tbsp golden syrup

Method

1. Bloom the cocoa in coffee

   Whisk the cocoa into the hot coffee and leave it to cool. Hot liquid dissolves the cocoa solids properly and deepens the flavour, and the coffee makes it taste more of chocolate rather than of coffee.

   15 min

2. Mix the dry

   Whisk the flour, sugar, bicarbonate of soda and a teaspoon of salt in a large bowl. Salt in a chocolate cake is not optional — without it the whole thing tastes flat and oversweet.

3. Combine wet and dry

   Beat the buttermilk, oil and eggs into the cooled cocoa mixture, then fold into the dry ingredients until just smooth. Oil rather than butter is deliberate: it stays liquid at fridge temperature, so the cake is still moist when cold.

4. Bake in two tins

   Divide between two lined 20 cm tins and bake at 170°C for about 30 minutes, until a skewer comes out with a few damp crumbs. Baked until totally clean, it is already overdone.

   30 min

5. Make the ganache

   Heat the cream and syrup to just below a simmer, pour over the chopped chocolate, wait two minutes, then stir from the middle outwards until glossy. Stirring immediately or from the edges is how ganache splits.

   2 min

6. Cool completely, then ice

   Let the cakes cool fully and the ganache thicken to a spreadable consistency before assembling. Warm cake melts ganache straight off the sides.