Chocolate rye cake

I’m not a chocolate cake person as some of you already know, but I’m aware that most people love them, especially the ones I share my baked goods with so from time to time I catch myself searching for a good chocolate cake recipe.

I found a beautiful loaf on Good Food magazine and it looked chocolaty, delicious and, above all, moist – this is one of my pet peeves with chocolate cakes: some of them turn out too dry – so I gave it a go. The recipe called for almond meal, an ingredient I love using in cakes because of how much it improves their texture, and I added a bit of rye flour to see if it was any good paired with chocolate.

Rye flour is as great with chocolate as it is with citrus, plums, berries, leeks and cheese – beetroot and onions, too, but more about that soon. :)

The cake turned out tender and flavorsome, and moist as I expected it to be – a good, simple chocolate loaf. The original recipe called for drizzling melted chocolate – both dark and white – over the cake, but I did not think that was necessary: in this case, less is definitely more.

Chocolate rye cake
slightly adapted from Good Food magazine

175g unsalted butter, softened
175g granulated sugar
3 eggs
70g all purpose flour
70g rye flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt
85g almond meal (finely ground almonds)
100ml whole milk, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 tablespoons cocoa powder
70g dark chocolate, in chips or chunks, slightly dusted with flour – I used one with 53% cocoa solids

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Butter a 20x10cm (6-cup capacity) loaf pan, line it with baking paper and butter the paper as well.
Beat the butter and sugar with an electric whisk until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, flours, baking powder, almond meal, salt, milk, vanilla and cocoa until smooth. Stir in the chocolate chips, then scrape into the tin. Bake for 45-50 minutes until golden, risen and a skewer poked in the center comes out clean.
Cool in the pan over a wire rack for 30 minutes, then carefully lift using the paper and transfer to the rack to cool completely before peeling off the paper.

Serves 8-10