Chocolate & nut cake

Treat family or friends to a lovely chocolate and nut cake. No one will expect the touch of cinnamon, and how well it combines with the buttery cake, chocolate pieces and nuts, until that first mouthful.

The recipe uses a lot of eggs in the batter, which gives the cake its richness, texture and flavour, and is a better option than too much butter and sugar. The cake also keeps well and doesn’t dry out easily.

The combination of sour cream and chocolate in the icing is quite decadent and so delicious. However, if you don’t want to make the icing, dust the top of the cake with a mixture of cinnamon and icing sugar instead.

Recipe

Chocolate and nut cake

Recipe from Make five/Maak vyf
Makes 1 large single-layer cake
1 hour 15 minutes

Ingredients

300 ml (300 g) soft butter

350 ml castor sugar

6 eggs

200 ml milk

10 ml (2 tsp) vanilla essence

750 ml (3 cups) self-raising flour

15 ml (1 tbsp) ground cinnamon

80 g good quality dark chocolate, chopped

50 g hazelnuts or almonds, coarsely chopped

Icing

100 ml milk or sour cream

50 g dark chocolate, chopped

chopped hazelnuts or almonds to decorate

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 °C. Line a 24 cm cake tin, (like an AMC Cake Tin) with baking paper. Lightly grease with extra butter.

2. Beat butter and sugar together with an electric beater in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Beat for quite a few minutes to incorporate as much air into the mixture as possible.

3. Add eggs, one at a time, and beat well after each addition. Beat until smooth.

4. Mix milk and vanilla together. Use a large metal spoon to fold the milk mixture into the butter mixture, alternating with the flour, until a smooth batter forms. Take care not to stir too much.

5. Mix cinnamon, chopped chocolate and nuts together and fold into the batter until just mixed through.

6. Spoon the batter into the tin and bake for 45 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Allow to stand for a few minutes, turn out and allow to cool completely on a cooling rack.

7. Icing: Gently heat milk or sour cream in a small saucepan over medium heat to just below boiling point. Add the chocolate and stir until melted. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly so that the mixture thickens.

8. Spread chocolate icing all over cake and sprinkle with nuts.