Holly's Chocolate Gingerbread

from Nigella Lawson’s Feast with notes by Holly in RED

Makes about 12 slabs. I'd never come across a chocolate gingerbread, and after making this one for the first time, I wondered why not. There's something about the glottally thickening wodge of chocolate chip and cocoa that just intensifies the rich spices of gingerbread. The chocolate chips add texture and nubbly treat within (I use semi-sweet chips, milk chocolate ones melt too much into the cake). This is very rich, very strong: not for children, but perfect for the rest of us.

Ingredients:

For the Cake

175 g (1 cup) Unsalted butter
125 g (1 cup) dark muscovado sugar --use the darkest brown sugar you can find
2 tbsp caster sugar
200 g (200 ml) golden syrup
200 g (200ml) black treacle or molasses
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger
1 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda --baking soda, but I'm sure you already knew that
2 tbsp warm water
2 eggs
250 ml milk --or apple sauce
275 g (2 cups) plain flour
40 g (1/3 cup) cocoa
175 g chocolate chips --I usually just use the whole bag of chocolate chips

For the Icing

250 g (2 cups) icing sugar
30 g (1/4 cup) unsalted butter
1 tbsp cocoa
60 ml ginger ale

Directions:

For the Cake

Preheat the oven to gas mark 3/170° C and tear off a big piece of baking parchment to line the bottom and sides of a roasting tin of approximately 30 x 20 x 5cm deep.
In a decent-sized saucepan, melt the butter along with the sugars, golden syrup, treacle or molasses, cloves, cinnamon and ground ginger.
In a cup dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in the water.
Take the saucepan off the heat and beat in the eggs, milk and bicarb in its water.
Stir in the flour and cocoa and beat with a wooden spoon to mix.
Fold in the chocolate chips, pour into the lined tin and bake for about 45 minutes until risen and firm.
It will be slightly damp underneath the set top and that's the way you want it.
Remove to a wire rack and let cool in the tin. Once cool, get on with the icing.

For the Icing

Sieve the icing sugar.
In a heavy-based saucepan heat the butter, cocoa and ginger ale.
Once the butter's melted, whisk in the icing sugar.
Lift the chocolate gingerbread out of the tin and unwrap the paper.
Pour over the icing just to cover the top and cut into fat slabs when set.
This makes a lot of icing, and I use it all! If you're serving this as a dessert, my favourite way to present it is to put the cake on a platter and then pour the icing over the centre of the cake and let it all ooze down over the sides.