Sometimes I wish I ate chocolate, especially when I look at the picture above. Unfortunately, chocolate gives me a migraine, so the prospect of lying in my bed while a jackhammer is having a party in my head is usually enough to keep me from touching the stuff. .. Oh well, it could be worse; I could get migraines from beer. And then I would really have to kill myself .

Thankfully there’s plenty of other people who do love chocolate, and I can always put a smile on their faces whenever I bring this cake with me. The initial protests of “just a little piece for me” quickly fade when they taste it, and I often find people surreptiously sneaking extra bites when my back is turned. Now, I have no claim to the success of this wonderful cake; it is all Nigella’s doing. But I’ll share the recipe here so you too can impress friends and colleagues with true death by chocolate! I’ve adapted it slightly because some of the original ingredients, such as muscovado sugar, are very hard to find here in the Netherlands.

You’ll need two 20cm cake tins for this cake, as well as a handheld electric mixer (whisking gives too many lumps, but maybe you have a stronger mixing arm than I do).

For the cakes:

• 400g plain flour
• 250g golden caster sugar
• 100g golden brown cane sugar
• 50g cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 eggs
• 1 small tub of sour cream (app. 140 ml)
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 175g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 125ml corn oil or sunflower oil
• 300ml chilled water

For the fudge icing:

• 175g dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids)
• 175g unsalted butter (Nigella uses 250, but that’s a bit too much for most people)
• 250g icing or powdered sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Butter the two 20cm cake tins. You can put baking paper in the tins to extract the cakes more easily when they are done, but if you butter the tins well this shouldn’t be a problem anyway.

In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugars, cocoa, baking powder, bicarb and salt. In a smaller bowl mix the eggs, sour cream and vanilla until blended. With an electric handheld mixer, beat the melted butter and corn oil/sunflower oil together, then beat in the water. Add all the dry ingredients, and mix together on a slow speed (or you’ll end up with batter everywhere, as I usually do). Add the egg mixture, and again mix until well blended. Divide the mixture over the two cake tins.

Bake the cakes for about 50 -60 minutes. They are done when a fork or cake-tester comes out clean. Let them cool in the tins for about 15 minutes, then remove the tins and let them cool on a wire rack or wooden board.

Now, in the original recipe Nigella has you melting the chocolate in a microwave. I’ve tried it once and ended up with a block of charred chocolate and a very smelly house; not quite sure what went wrong there. Anyway, I usually melt the chocolate using the fool-proof method of au bain marie. Just put the chocolate in a pot, and put it in a slightly bigger pot with simmering water (don’t forget to make sure that the water cannot spill into the chocolate, or you’ll end up with some very watery and disgusting chocolate).

Mix the butter until it’s soft and creamy, and add the powdered/icing sugar. If you want to make absolutely sure that there will be no lumps, sieve the sugar. Finally, add the vanilla extract and the chocolate, and mix until smooth.

 Sandwich the two cakes together with about a quarter of the icing, and then ice the top and sides with a rubber spatula. The result will probably look something like the picture above.

Apply to face and enjoy the sugar rush.