Recipe: Delicious Sticky Chocolate and Treacle Cake

Delicious Sticky Chocolate and Treacle Cake

This is based of the "Delicious Sticky Ginger Cake" recipe I posted last week. It's my own creation and was consumed with great speed by Rob's work colleagues who were very happy to test it for me. This makes a soft, light, sticky chocolate cake, but you do have like treacle too because that is a prevelant flavour along with the chocolate.

The only changes are:

• substituting some of the flour with cocoa, 
• adding vanilla instead of cinamon, 
• 2 tblsps of golden syrup rather than one to up the liquid content slightly because cocoa is drier than flour, 
• and an extra 1/4 tspn of bicarb to account for the cocoa being more acidic than flour.

Equipment

• 1 large saucepan
• 1 small (milk) saucepan
• 1 bowl
• scales
• spatula
• 2 2lb loaf tins (approx 21x11x7cm | 8x4x3inches)
• loaf tin liners or grease proof paper or baking parchment
• small hand whisk or fork

This recipe uses the hob to heat ingredients, you could probably use a microwave if you are more familiar with that - just use microwave proof bowls instead of saucepans.

Ingredients

• 8oz | 230g | 2/3 cup Black Treacle (Molasses)
• 8oz | 230g | 1 cup Soft Spread (you can use butter, but a baking spread makes a lighter cake)
• 8oz | 230g | 1 1/4 cup Dark Brown Sugar
• 2 tbsp Golden Syrup (US peeps, if it's not in the baking section, try the international section - at a push you could use corn syrup)
• 1/2 pt (UK) | 285ml | 1 1/3 cup milk (I used semi skimmed, but the recipe probably originally used whole milk - so just use what you have)
• 3/4 tspn Bicarbonate of Soda (Baking Soda)
• 9.4oz | 265g | 1 4/5 cup self raising (rising) flour
• 2.6oz | 75g |  3/4 cup cocoa
• 1 tblsp vanilla extract
• 1 large egg

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 150C | 300F | Gas Mark 2.
2. Put the loaf tin liners in the loaf tins or line the tins with you lining of choice. (You really don't want to try and get this cake out of an unlined tin - it is very soft and moist ;)).
3. Put the treacle, soft spread, brown sugar and syrup into the large saucepan.
4. Heat gently until these all melt together, stiring at times to make sure it all mixes.
5. Measure out the flour and cocoa into a bowl and put aside for later.
6. Put the milk and egg into the small saucepan and beat the egg into the milk using a small hand whisk or a fork.
7. Add the flour and cocoa to the treacle mixture in the saucepan and stir together.
8. Add the vanilla to the treacle mixture and stir.
9. Heat the milk/egg mixture gently to blood temperature (easiest way to measure is to stick your little finger in every now and then and when it feels like it isn't cold it's at the right temperature :)).
10. Add the bicarb to the milk mixture and stir.
11. Add the milk mixture to the treacle mixture and stir together.
12. Pour the cake batter into the two loaf tins.
13. Put the cakes in the oven and bake for about 1hr (stick a skewer into the middle of the cake to check it is done, if not let it cook a little longer).
14. Take out of the oven and allow to cool in the tins until cool enough to handle, then turn out onto a wire cake rack to finish cooling.

The cake keeps very well, easily up to a week and even up to 2 weeks - just pop into an air tight tin. This is a moist cake, so it actually improves with age.