FOOD FRIDAY - MUD CAKE

“When someone asks if you’d like cake or pie, why not say you want cake and pie?” - Lisa Loeb

A recipe for a classic, rich chocolate cake this week. Dark and dense, it gets its name from the dark mud of the great river of the USA, the Mississippi…

MISSISSIPPI MUD CAKE
Ingredients
250 g unsalted butter, chopped up
150 g dark chocolate, chopped up
2 cups of sugar
1 cup hot water
1/3 cup brandy
1 tbsp dry instant coffee
1 tsp vanilla essence
1½ cups of plain flour
¼ cup SR flour
¼ cup cocoa
2 eggs, lightly beaten
Icing sugar for dusting (or ganache, see below)

Method
Grease a 23cm square slab pan, line base with greaseproof paper. Combine butter, chocolate, sugar, water, brandy, vanilla essence and coffee in double saucepan or in heatproof bowl, stir over hot water until chocolate is melted and mixture smooth; cool to lukewarm.  Transfer mixture to large bowl, stir in sifted flours and cocoa, then eggs.  Pour into prepared pan.

Bake in moderately slow oven for about 1¼ hours.  Stand 10 minutes before turning on to wire rack to cool.  Serve dusted with sifted icing sugar (or chocolate ganache). Keeping time: 5 days.

This is a dense moist cake, serve with double cream if desired.

Ganache
1/3 cup (80ml) cream
200g dark eating chocolate, chopped coarsely

Bring cream to the boil in small saucepan, remove from heat, add chocolate, stir until smooth, pour over cake. Or, refrigerate ganache until firm, then beat in a small bowl with electric mixer until smooth and thick, spread whipped ganache over cake.

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