Black Forest Chocolate Log

At Christmas we always make or buy a chocolate log cake for those in the family who do not like Christmas cake or pudding. I will happily have all three. I made this cake a few weeks ago and I have been asked repeatedly to remake it as it was so good!

This is a wonderful cake recipe which works very well as a bundt cake, log in the Nordic Ware log tin or a regular cake tin (divide the mix into two and sandwich together with extra cherry jam/preserve). I’ve done it in all three and it worked in each.

This is a very impressive cake and is more like a sublime pudding than cake so it works incredibly well no matter when you want it.

Ingredients

• • 220g butter
  • 450g golden caster sugar
  • 4 medium eggs
  • 330g plain flour
  • 60g cocoa powder
  • ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • tiny pinch of salt
  • 340g cherry yoghurt
  • 4 tablespoons of chunky cherry jam (I used Tesco Finest Morello Cherry Conserve)
  • 8-10 glace cherries chopped in half
  • 60g chocolate chips

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 (150 fan)
2. Grease the tin well. (For a bundt tin or the Nordic Ware Log tin I use melted butter and paint it on with a pastry brush and when that has cooled a dusting of flour which helps to find any places on the tin I’ve missed to grease).
3. Cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy.
4. Add the eggs one at a time and watch it get lighter.
   
5. In a separate bowl measure out and sieve the flour, cocoa powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt.
6. Add the yoghurt and jam/conserve to the butter/egg mix.
   
7. Add the flour mix and chocolate chips and slowly stir in until all the flour has disappeared. 
8. If the jam you used is runny you might need to add a tablespoon extra of flour to stop the mix being too runny.
9. Add the mixture to the tin and bake in the centre of the oven for about 1 hour 15 minutes (bundt), 1 hour 30 for the log or until a skewer comes out clean. When the cake pulls away from the edge of the tin the cake is ready. If the top of the cake starts to burn, cover the cake with aluminum foil.
   
10. Allow the cake to cool in the tin before turning out.
    
11. Enjoy! Serve with a drizzle of single cream.
    

Enjoy and Merry Christmas