Monday, 16 February 2009

Chocolate Honey Cake, Nigella Lawson, Feast.

This recipe is from Nigella Feast, which has got a great section on chocolate cakes. I decided to bake this cake for my Dad's birthday party. It would be too small for the over 80 people expected to attend, but I thought it would provide a really pretty visual treat.

It's a damp, moist cake that is easy to make. Just dump the ingredie
nts into the food processor and blitz.

Honey is used in both the cake and the icing. And because of it, it's one of those cakes that some people love, and some others could hate. It looks dark and chocolatey, and so it is what your tastebuds are expecting. If you didn't know it was a honey cake, you would be surprised by the taste of the honey, which is quite pronounced. Therefore, you need to choose the type of honey you use carefully. It wasn't something I thought about and so I used whatever was already open in the cupboard. The fact that I didn't actually like the taste of that particular type of honey very much, somewhat compromised my eventual satisfaction levels. You could also probably reduce the amount of icing sugar in the icing, which was very very very sweet.

I did, however, love the decorative bees, which are made with marzipan and almond flakes and drawn with the honey chocolate icing. They were adorable.

The cake was generally well-received. The kids, especially, came back for seconds and thirds, and asked to eat the bees. I thought it was nice, in an OK kind of way. I'm not sure I'd make this cake again, since I have other chocolate cake recipes to try out and ones that I've tried before that I know are winners. As a chocolate cake, it's not the best I've tried. As a honey cake, with better honey, I think I might like this more. Love the bees though.

Oh, and I need to acknowledge my brother's help with this cake. It's useful having an assistant!

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