Super-easy chocolate cake – as good as it sounds! It’s decorated with chocolate curls, with more added to the batter, but shredded or grated chocolate can be used just as well.
A huge box of chocolate curls
Buying stuff online is extremely convenient but it does have its perils. Especially for someone like me, who has no feel for quantities and a hopeless sense of scale.
Is two kilos a lot? How much is a gallon? Will a 8 inch roaster be large enough to roast a chicken? How large is my oven, actually?
Hence, inevitably, there’s an odd disaster every now and then, of the underbuying or overbuying kind. It’s mostly due to misleading descriptions or, let’s be honest, not reading the descriptions properly. A mini brioche tin instead of a full-sized one, a tray that won’t fit into the oven, and the most recent purchase: a truckload of chocolate curls.
The description online bore adequate information, no question – I just failed to read it. But it’s excellent quality milk chocolate, so now I’m going to have to make chocolate desserts every other day for the next fifty years.
And here is one: the curls stirred into the cake mix add a lovely squidgy factor. The batter is ready in about three minutes and the cake is almost healthy – not much fat and not much sugar. And it’s delicious and versatile so my purchase has been put to a very good use.
How to shred chocolate
The dainty chocolate curls that feature in the pictures here are of course not essential to the recipe: the chocolate can be grated, shredded or even finely chopped.
The best results are with well-chilled chocolate bars, held through a piece of parchment while grating so your fingers don’t melt it. Microplane graters are the best, and for this recipe I’d recommend a coarse one.
You can also make pretty shavings with a vegetable peeler, if you’re patient enough.
But in my view a food processor with a coarse grater attachment will work a treat. Another option is a mini or a stick blender, but you must take care to process the chocolate in very few short bursts, so it doesn’t turn into paste.
How to make the cake batter
It’s ridiculously easy: a simple dry-to-wet ingredients method. The dry ingredients are stirred together in one bowl with half the amount of the shaved or grated chocolate, and the wet ones are whisked in another bowl or a jug.
Then combine the two, folding with spatula or whisking with a whisk, and that’s the batter done.
Baking and topping
It bakes for about forty to forty-five minutes until it passes the skewer test.
The remaining chocolate curls, shavings or shreds should be scattered on top, whilst the cake is still in the tin but cooled down a little.
Variations
I advise using milk chocolate in the recipe, because it’s more of a crowd pleaser. But personally, I’d say go for dark chocolate. It will end up less sweet and more grown-up in flavour.
To boost the chocolate goodness, you can add some cacao nibs: small pieces of crushed, fermented and dried cacao beans, available from supermarkets and online. That’s chocolate in its raw and basic form, without any sugar or milk added.
And if, on the other hand, you want to make it sweet and cheerful, fold some chopped glace cherries into the batter and/or decorate the cake with their halves.
More easy chocolate cake recipes
Samin Nosrat’s chocolate cake, aka midnight cake is one of the easiest and the nicest chocolate cakes in the world. It is an old revived Betty Crocker recipe, and I finish it with a mixed dried fruit salad topping for a citrusy tang.
Easy fudgy chocolate brownies, the mix takes only minutes to prepare. Brownie made with hand whisk, no need for electric mixer. The simplest and quickest brownie recipe and the result is fantastic.
Chocolate and glace cherry cake: my deconstructed black forest gateau. Cherries mixed into the batter, cream served on the side, it’s a mere hint of the black forest cake.
More chocolate dessert recipes
Triple chocolate profiteroles, made with choux pastry filled with Chantilly and chocolate mousse, glazed with white and dark chocolate sauce.
Very chocolate ice cream recipe, easily made at home. Eggless recipe for rich chocolate ice cream made with an ice cream maker and good quality milk chocolate.
Easy chocolate mousse recipe with no eggs, a simple, two ingredient chocolate dessert ready in minutes. This recipe is for a whipped cream chocolate mousse, which is simply a whipped ganache served as dessert.