Originally I had planned to make this cake while I was at the cottage. Knowing that there would probably be very few baking specific ingredients up there I made sure I packed everything I would need and only left out two things that I felt positive would be there when I needed them, flour and baking soda.

On the Saturday afternoon after a ridiculously filling lunch (as always :)), I began to prep the ingredients for the cake. I pulled everything out of my bag (including my food scale) took the flour out of the fridge, and asked my grandmother where she kept the baking soda. She looks and can't find it, I look and I can't find it. Okay, how about my aunt? She has to have some. So we call up my aunt, and low and behold she doesn't have any baking soda either. At this point I decided that it probably was not meant to be. Granted it was only a ¼ tsp of baking soda, and I could have left it out and increased the baking powder, but I figured I could wait until I got home. Besides there was enough food already, probably best not to add to the pile, especially considering my grandmother was using me as somewhat of a garbage disposal :). (You know that scene in Rudolph where Mrs. Claus is telling Santa to “EAT PAPA EAT”? That's how I felt :)).

I finally got down to making the cake the other night (Tuesday) and as with a lot of recipes, I went ahead and reduced the sugar in this one as well. Because I decided to only reduce the brown sugar I switched it up to Dark Brown since I thought that the deeper molasses flavour would aid in an overall richer taste without being too sweet. Since these were US measurements a full cup of packed dark brown sugar would normally weigh about 238g so I took it down to 150g or approximately 2/3 US Cups (actually about 8g less). You could probably add a tablespoon of instant espresso, or replace some of the milk with coffee to bring out some more chocolate flavour. But lemme tell you, you're not going to need it.

The cake came out of the oven with a crispy crust (great for the nut jobs in my house :)), and a nice light crumb. I would describe the the flavour as an eyes closed, melt in your mouth, god I wish I had a bigger glass of milk kind of chocolatey-richness, and that's exactly what I wanted. Not too sweet, just dark chocolate bliss. Wait, what's that? I think I hear it calling me from the fridge right now. “Yes my dark lord, I'll be there soon.”

~ Adam

Chocolate Loaf Cake

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour (195g)

3/4 cup dutch process cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup buttermilk*

1/2 cup + 2 tbsp dark brown sugar, packed (150g)**

1/2 cup + 1 tbsp granulated sugar (113g)***

1/2 cup butter, room temperature (1 stick , 113g)

1 large egg, room temperature

1 tsp vanilla extract

*Can be substituted for 1 cup regular milk and 1 tbsp vinegar or lemon juice (this is what I used). Add Vinegar to milk and allow to sit for 10 minutes before adding.

Pre-heat oven to 325F and grease and flour a 9x5x3 inch loaf pan.

In a medium mixer bowl cream butter at medium speed until smooth.
Add sugars and beat until fluffy (2-3 minutes). Add egg, and beat until fully incorporated. Add buttermilk and vanilla and mix for about a minute. The liquid is going to look like you dumped water into cottage cheese, this is normal (Deb refers to this as “uneven”, which is a pretty good description).

In a separate bowl sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

With a spoon stir dry ingredients into the wet in two additions. Make sure everything is fully incorporated but do not over mix. (At this point try not to start eating the batter out of the bowl).

Pour batter into prepared loaf pan and place on middle rack for 60 to 70 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean (mine took 60 minutes).

Let sit in pan on rack for 10 minutes, and then remove and place on rack to finish cooling.

*Note: crust will only last until you store the cake.

**Originally listed as 2/3 cup.
***Originally listed as 1/2 cup.
~ Adam (27-10-10)