Just as I thought I was running out of chocolate cake experiments, here comes this one. This dense, moist, chocolate oblivion. It’s deeply chocolatey, with big chunks of walnuts and melted dark chocolate chips. I love covering cakes with ganache or syrup and this one is no exception. This topping however is something between ganache and syrup. It’s basically a thin ganache, so that you can brush it on the cake as soon as it comes out of the oven. The ganache melts even further and sinks into the cake, making it moist and more chocolatey than a chocolate bar. Served with strawberries it’s absolute heaven. Enough said. Start baking.

Ingredients

• 2 cups walnuts halves
• 1 cup cocoa plus 2 Tbs extra
• ¾ cups boiling water
• 1 cup sour cream
• ½ cup whole milk
• 250 grams unsalted butter
• 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
• ½ cup packed soft brown sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 ½ cups plain or all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp salt
• ¾ cup dark chocolate chips

For the chocolate ganache

• 100 grams best quality milk chocolate
• 100 grams best quality dark chocolate
• 1 cup cream

Method

Preheat oven to 175 C. Butter a 25 cm round, bundt pan. Dust with 2 tablespoons cocoa. Shake off excess.

Put walnut halves on a baking tray and roast for 6 minutes until fragrant. Cool and roughly chop into big chunks. I cut each half into four pieces. Set aside.

Mix the 1 cup cocoa and boiling water in a bowl. Whisk until cocoa is dissolved and you have a smooth paste. Add sour cream and milk. Mix again until smooth.

In a bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugars until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla and mix again. Add the cocoa/sour cream mixture and beat briefly to combine scraping down the sides of the mixer bowl.

In a bowl, sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Lower the mixer speed to low. Add the flour mixture to the mixer bowl and beat only until dry ingredients are wet. Don’t over beat. Take mixer bowl off the mixer.

Fold the roasted walnuts and chocolate chips into the cake batter, using a silicon spatula or a large spoon. Pour cake batter into prepared tin. Bake for 45-50 minutes, until a cake tester or a wooden skewer comes out clean.

Make ganache while cake bakes. Crush chocolates in a food processor and put in a heatproof bowl. Put cream in a small saucepan and bring to boil. Pour cream over chocolates and stir until chocolates have melted and ganache is smooth.

Take the cake out of the oven and let it stand for five minutes. Invert in a platter and using a pastry brush, brush all over with the ganache. Do this twice. Then take a spoon and spoon the remaining ganache all over the cake. The ganache will drizzle down the sides and centre of the cake but that’s ok.

Cool cake completely before slicing and serving. It’s heavenly!