Chocolate Loaf Cake a la Nigella
Posted by Moose on March 30th, 2006. Filed under: I Live to Eat.Nigella failed me with the snickerdoodles. After careful consideration, I have decided to give her another shot. I’m just nice that way. It would be far more accurate to say that I failed Nigella’s snickerdoodles, but a moose never admits defeat. A moose blames others. I jest. Besides, I think I know what went wrong (not enough butter) and I am prepared to conquer the everliving hell out of my next snickerdoodle batch.
Now I’m on to her recipe for dense chocolate loaf cake. Oh my. How good you look in the picture, dense chocolate loaf cake.
And how good Nigella looks in her pictures. She almost makes me wish my preferences tended toward women.
Notice that I’m already off to a bad start. Nigella calls for dark brown sugar. I’m using golden. See the sugar and salt? The recipe didn’t actually call for those.
Baking seems to require a lot of wooden spoon time. As is typical for me, my short attention span means that I will mash butter and sugar together for approximately 28 seconds before getting bored and wandering off to do something else. Like update this blog. Hi.
Jump like scalded bunny rabbit when oven I thought I lit sufficiently makes it very clear that I did not, in fact, light it sufficiently. Terrifying whoosh echoes through the kitchen, loudly demonstrating that the gas has now caught the flame. Very glad my head was not in the oven, as it tends to be when lighting the thing. Never realized how terrifying baking could be. Wonder if Nigella has to put up with this kind of nonsense.
Now comes the time when I pour water and flour in spoon by spoon. This is tedious. I don’t recommend it. But Nigella decrees and I am still at the point where I follow recipes religiously. Because I just don’t know any better.
See those lumps? We’ll see if those come back to haunt me.
That looks nice and sedate, doesn’t it? What this picture doesn’t show is the humiliating speed with which I attack the batter bowl, licking it clean. My fingerprints are all over that bowl. I stop just short of sticking my face in it. Glad no one is in the house to witness this breakdown of self-control and dignity.
I pat myself on the back for one damn handsome chocolate loaf cake.
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March 31st, 2006 at 6:08 pm
You loaf looks great and so does your blog. Great look, great name.
But you’re so anonymous….you definitely have me very curious…..
Welcome to the world of blogging. I can’t wait to have more time to get back to it.
June 4th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
I’ve decided to spend some time in your archives. I’m a bit bloggity-slow—do you see comments from this long ago? Maybe you choose not to?
I love Nigella with the power of 10 Red Artisans, but she’s let me down a few times. (I should add here that your loaf looks fabulous.) Her recipe that let me down so low that I nearly went-off-Nigella for a month? Chcoloate Granola. It’s out of FEAST and was featured on one of her shows. SO many ingredients. Many not commonly found in one’s cupboard. And the end result was meh. Boring. Tasteless. Crumbly mess. Not a single person I force-fed this to thought it was good.
But then? I made her Guinness Cake and then her Lavender Cupcakes….and it was Honeymoon-Time all over again.