Chocolate cake

A good, multipurpose chocolate cake.

A recent iteration: layered with summer fruit jam, whipped mascarpone cream, and topped with a tumble of berries. Photo: Ruth Barry

I sent out the first issue of Black Isle Baking just over a year ago. For months, I’d talked about the idea, and talked myself out of it too. We have a toddler who happens to be the most explosively energetic person I’ve ever met, and so it’s hard to find gaps in the day when a cake can be in the oven for an hour. I wasn’t wrong about it being difficult. Quiet moments are rare and brief, so I write and test recipes in the last scraps of the day. 

If I had the time, I’d plan out newsletters months in advance. Instead, I keep a running list of recipes and decide which one feels most manageable to develop that month. A good, multipurpose chocolate cake had been at the top of the list for a while, and marking one year of Black Isle Baking seemed a good time to get on with it. I wanted a cake that was moist and light and, because we’re all too busy, quick to get in the oven. I wanted it simple enough to be a you-just-feel-like-cake kind of cake, but smart enough that it can be layered with creams and mousses and jams and decorated to the nines.

Two serving suggestions. Left: layered with sour-cherry jam and whipped mascarpone cream, topped with fresh cherries and a dusting of salted chocolate. Right: a simple cake for a coffee date, filled with whipped cream cheese frosting. Photos: Ruth Barry

This cake ticks all those boxes. Try layering it with sour-cherry jam and whipped mascarpone cream to make a Black Forest cake. An espresso Italian meringue buttercream would make it very elegant. Or bake it in a square tin, then smother the whole thing with chocolate buttercream and sprinkles for a kid’s birthday cake.

The key to keeping a chocolate cake moist is lots of sugar, preferably brown. This recipe will work fine with white, or a combination of both white and brown, but with white it will form more of a crust on top and taste sweeter. Make sure to use the right size baking tin. If you use a tin that's too small and overfill it, you’ll wind up with a big dome on top. To make a layer cake, use a cake slicer or divide the mixture between two or three sandwich tins. Just adjust the baking time. Three 20-centimeter tins will take 15–18 minutes each. (I can fit all three onto one tray in my oven, though you can bake them separately.) The baking time can be a little delicate: a hair too short and your cake might dip a little in the center. But don’t worry. It's just extra room for another dollop of whipped cream.

Photo: Ruth Barry

Chocolate Cake

Makes a 20-centimeter round

• 330 grams brown sugar (light or dark is fine)

• 180 grams vegetable oil

• 3 eggs

• 180 grams all-purpose flour

• 60 grams cocoa

• ½ teaspoon baking soda

• ½ teaspoon salt

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 100 grams buttermilk

Equipment

• Electric hand mixer

• 20-centimeter round, loose-bottomed tin

Preheat the oven to 160°C (with fan). Grease and line the baking tin with baking paper.

Add the sugar to a large mixing bowl and break down any lumps with your hands. Add the oil and eggs. Use an electric hand mixer on high speed and mix for two minutes.

Sift the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt together, then add to the wet ingredients. Add the vanilla extract and buttermilk, then mix until smooth.

Transfer the mixture to the baking tin, then bake in the center of the oven for an hour, or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean and the cake feels springy.

Allow to cool in the tin for 15 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. Allow to cool completely before slicing and filling the cake.