Quatre épices spiced chocolate & coffee cake

Spiced chocolate & coffee cake with honey & quatre épices

Inspired by the festive season my chocolate & coffee cake with honey is spiced with quatre épices. A popular spice blend (literally translated as four spices) here in France consisting of ginger, cloves, pepper & nutmeg. Often used in savoury dishes such as rillettes & pâtés it works well in sweet recipes too where you want a unique spiciness. 

A dark, sticky spiced cake perfect as a festive dessert or even as an alternative from the Christmas cake or Christmas pudding for those of you who are not fans of dried fruit that is so popular at this time of year.  

This cake is great served warm with vanilla ice cream or even with a rum or brandy flavoured cream. Happy festive baking! I hope you enjoy. Let me know what your favourite festive bakes and makes are in the comments below.  

This recipe is adapted from this fabulous treacle ginger chocolate cake by Ruby Tandoh. 

preparation time:  10-15 minutes
cooking time:  45 minutes

ingredients:

150g plain flour
200g sugar

40g cocoa powder

2 eggs (lightly beaten)

125g butter

180ml strong black coffee (or water if you don't like coffee)

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) 

3 tbs honey

2 tsp quatre épices 

pinch of salt  

1. Grease & line a deep 20cm cake tin and preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4
2. Melt the butter, honey & coffee together in a saucepan over a low heat
3. In a separate bowl sieve the dry ingredients together
4. Add the beaten eggs to the melted mixture 
5. Gradually fold this into the dry mixture until fully incorporated
6. Pour into your prepared cake tin and bake for about 45 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.  
7. Leave to cool for about 15 minutes before removing the cake carefully from the tin and cooling on a wire rack.  

For more of my recipes check out the recipe page here.  

My spiced chocolate & coffee cake with honey & quatre épices is also featured on: 

Cooking with Herbs hosted by Lavender and Lovage

For more chocolate cake inspiration check out my chocolate and peanut butter cake

(probably) the perfect chocolate & peanut butter cake

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Eric le Chien at De Tout Coeur Limousin