Gooey Chocolate Cake

Today is the last day at work before the christmas break, and as usual it's potluck; with everyone bringing in something delicious to share at lunch time. We usually end up with quite an impressive buffet of sweet and savioury delicacies. Because of my decision to have a quiet and introspective day yesterday, my contribution this year is a really simple, but rich gooey chocolate cake. The best way to describe it is as half-brownie, half-macaroon. If you ever find yourself craving something sweet and your cupboards are looking bare, this is the perfect quick fix.

The cake is great on its own, but to jazz it up you could serve it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, yum. I doubled the recipe and cut the cake into squares (a' la brownie). The recipe comes from a Swedish site called recepten.se.

Gooey chocolate cake
100 g butter
2 eggs
300 ml sugar (or half sugar half xylitol)
200 ml all purpose flour (not self-raising)
3 tbsp good quality cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract

Turn on the oven to 175°C. Melt the butter and set it aside and let it cool. Meanwhile use some of the melted butter and grease a round springform tin (although I used a square tin and lined it with parchment paper instead, since I wanted squares).

Whisk the sugar and eggs until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract and cocoa powder and mix well. Add the flour (you'll need to switch to a wooden spoon at this stage as the batter gets quite heavy). Finally add the melted butter and carefully stir until everything is well combined.

Put in the prepared tin - the mixture is quite thick and you may have to spread it out a little bit with the back of the spoon or a spatula. Bake in the middle of the oven for no more than 20 minutes, if you have a fan assisted oven probably not more than 16 or 17 minutes. You don't want to overcook the cake, as it should have a nice cheewy, gooey consistency.

Now all you need is a little patience while it cools. Enjoy.