I love an all in one bowl recipe where you have minimal cleaning up after! This great chocolate loaf cake recipe is quick and easy to put together and bakes up so delicious. The original recipe is from Becky Excel and I’ve just changed it a little.
So this is a great chocolate cake recipe. It’s rich and has a great texture. It can be used for any occasion and I decided to bake it, cut out a shamrock shape x 2 and decorate with shades of green buttercream. It’s a fun thing to try and worked well because of the shamrock shape and colour variations.
I made the cake in two 8″ / 20 cm round tins. Then found a shamrock image on the web, sized it, printed it and cut it out of the cooled cakes. If you can draw freehand, go for it! I would recommend gel dye colour rather than a liquid one. Start with a small bit for the first shade, then increase the quantity to get a deeper colours as you go.
This recipe is a twist on what we would know as a traditional Tea Loaf. It’s got ground almonds, grated apple and I swapped whole wheat flour in place of white flour for a healthier result. As I was using dried fruit which is naturally sweet, I could also reduce the sugar quantity.
The slices of apple dipped in tea and decorated on top give it a lovely rustic look and something to bite into. When I made it, I felt it was going to be very dense and dry but it worked out really nicely and perfect with a cup of tea any morning or afternoon.
By using whole wheat flour, the recipe is changed to a healthier version with more fibre and less processed flour, plus reducing the sugar quantity is always a bonus. Sprinkling a little brown sugar on top gives it a lovely caramelised finish.
