Last weekend Molly and Enrico came over for dinner, Molly brought a chocolate cake, which she advertised as ” almost gluten free”. The cake was a hit, we loved it, the kids loved it, I asked for the recipe, though I’m not massive on chocolate cake normally. What was left of the one Molly brought was devoured the next day and both Bankses urged me to get on with it and bake another one, pronto!

Some help from Molly was required, as the recipe was her mum’s and I had no idea how much ” 2 sticks of butter” were, but we got there in the end and yesterday I took out of the oven a well risen, moist, light, great cake. A keeper and not at all complicated.

While the oven was warming up to 160 degrees I got the cake tin ready with baking paper all around, 230 g of butter and 280 g of good quality dark chocolate melted together in bain marie. 5 eggs were beaten whole with 200g of sugar, I did half and half caster and brown. All treated with the whisks of kitchen aid until they were light and fluffy. To this 5 tbsps of plain flour went it, alongside 1, 1/2 tsp of baking powder ( Ewa has just sorted me out with good English baking powder and soda for baking!). Chocolate and butter combo went in, all nicely combined together.

The cake was in the oven for about 1 hour, I kept checking till the stick came out dry; about half way though I covered it with alu foil to make sure it bakes inside, but stays fairly moist on top.

A dusting of vanilla icing sugar completed the picture. Superb cake!