It was my brother-in-law's birthday last weekend, so I invited him over for dinner. It took me some time to decide what to cook. We had curry last time he was over and he ended up taking over the cooking whilst I fed Cooper, so this time, I wanted to have dinner well underway and just ready to pop in the oven when he arrived.

I decided to make veggie lasagne as it is such a long time since we enjoyed it last and homemde lasagne is always rather special. It is an easy dish, even though it requires quite a bit of preparation. I realised I haven't posted my recipe for it, so I will rectify that sometime this week.

My next decision was whether to make dessert or bake a cake, but heck, it was his birthday, so cake it was. I sat on the livingroom floor surrounded by recipe books, trying to decide and let me tell you it was no easy job, but I eventually settled on a chocolate cake from 101 Chocolate Treats. All I can say is extreme chocolate rush!

Extreme Chocolate, Chocolate Cake

225g/30 squares dark chocolate, broken up
200g/1 ¾ sticks butter, diced
1 tbsp coffee granules
85g/¾ cup self-raising flour
85g/¾ cup plain flour
¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
200g/1 ¼ light muscovado sugar (I used demerara sugar)
200g/1 cup caster sugar
125ml/2⁄3 cup water
25g/¼ cup cocoa powder
3 large eggs, beaten
5 tbsp buttermilk (or same of milk, with a squeeze of lemon mixed in)
grated curls of chocolate to decorate

ganache

284ml/1 ½ cups double cream
2 tbsp caster sugar
225g/30 squares chocolate, broken up

Preheat oven to 160c/gas mark 3/fan 140c. Butter and line a 20cm/8 inch round and 7.5cm/3 inch deep cake tin.

Melt the chocolate with the butter, coffee granules and water.

Mix together the flours, soda, sugars and cocoa powder. Mix the eggs with the buttermilk. Stir the chocolate and egg mixtures into the flour until smooth and quite runny. Pour into the tin and bake for 1½ hours until the top is firm and a skewer inserted, comes out clean.

Leave to cool in the tin and then turn out onto a wire rack. When completely cool slice into two or three layers.

Next make the ganache. Scold the cream and sugar in a pan and pour over the broken chocolate pieces, then stir until melted and smooth. Leave to cool for a few minutes before spreading between the layers and smoothed over the whole cake. Sprinkle with chocolate curls.















As you can see, my cake would have benefited from a while in the fridge, it was rather warm in the kitchen and conservatory, so the ganache was melting somewhat. Of couse we couldn't wait to have a slice and didn't really care. It was delicious, but I would advise you to only have a small slice.

We sent Lachlan home with some cake and put the rest in the fridge. It came out the next day lovely and firm and fudgey. Mmmmmmmmm.