The Fluffy Chocolate Cake

This little delicious recipe by Nigella Lawson has been on my mind since I came across it in the Better Homes and Gardens October issue.  Despite the golden syrup sounded so good, we were too lazy to drive down to the British mart.  So I've substituted it with two extra tablespoons of orange juice and tried out the whole wheat pastry flour instead of using all-purpose flour.

make one loaf with 9x5x3 pan

10 tablespoons of melted unsalted  butter

1 cup of dark brown sugar

1 cup of whloe wheat pastry flour

1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

3 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted

2 eggs

1 tablespoon of orange zest

5 tablespoons of orange juice

Preheat oven to 325°F.  Line the pan with parchment paper and grease the sides of the pan.  Put butter and sugar in a large bowl and beat it until smooth.  In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda and cocoa powder.  Beat 1 tablespoon of the dry ingredients into the sugar mixture and then beat in one egg.  

Add two more spoonful of dry ingredients and then beat in the other egg.  Gradually beat in the rest of the dry ingredients, then the orange zest and the orange juice at last.

 Pour batter into the pan and bake for 60 minutes.  Test the center with a toothpick and it should come out clean.  Let it cool in the pan for a little while before removing from pan.  Allow the loaf to cool completely before slicing it.

 A little note between the recipes, our loaf took longer in the oven than the original recipe possibly because of the little twist on the ingredients.  The sweetness is just right for us so if next time I will use golden syrup, I might take some sugar out.  There are two wonderful ingredients I would recommend to try, the whole wheat pastry flour from Bob's Red Mill and the Cocoa Rouge, red Dutch process cocoa, from E. Guittard.  Despite the low in acidity of Dutch process cocoa may have affected the chemistry with baking soda, the cake is still very delicious!

Happy Baking!  =)