Sluttishly Easy: Rachel Allen’s Chocolate and Ginger Nut Biscuit Cake

Those generous folks at Harper Collins recently sent the domestic sluts a copy of Rachel Allen’s new cookbook, Home Cooking. And very impressive it is too. It’s a satisfyingly heavy hardback with modern, simple photos, and as well as recipes there are also lots of advice sections on conundrums such as menu planning. The section on basics such as sauces, jam and coulis is useful too, as other inferior cookbooks often omit these. And some of the recipes featured are for the type of thing I’d always suspected would be horrifically complicated, such as homemade gnocchi, yoghurt or marshmallows, which Rachel somehow manages to make sound easy peasy.

My only slight gripe is that on occasion she goes slightly too far in over-explaining simple recipes. I’m as far away from domestic goddess as can be, and yet even I’ve never needed detailed instructions on how to make porridge or toasted sandwiches. And if I can muddle through, so can you, so some of the in-depth tutorials are probably a tad unnecessary.

But for the most part the recipes are straightforward and easy to follow, with tasty, fancy-looking results. So much so that the recipe we’re going to share with you doesn’t even involve any baking. Yup, there’s no need whatsoever to even turn on your oven, and at the end of it you’ll still have a deliciously sinful sticky cake that goes just perfect with coffee or tea. We’ve plumped for a chocolate-featuring recipe, which combined with ginger biscuits and or two other ingredients, will form a gorgeous gooey cake.

You’ll need these things:

300g dark or milk chocolate, chopped
1 tbsp golden syrup
250g ginger nut biscuits
2 eggs, beaten (make sure they're the freshest you have)
Cake tin and parchment paper

And you’ll need to do these things:

1. Line the cake tin with parchment paper.
2. Melt the chocolate and golden syrup in a large heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Meanwhile, crush your biscuits in a plastic bag with a rolling pin.
3. Stir the eggs and crushed biscuits into the melted chocolate and then pour the mixture into the prepared tin, spreading evenly and smoothing the surface with the back of the spoon.
4. Chill in the fridge for a couple of hours until set, or pop in the freezer for about 45 minutes. Remove and slice into pieces.

Once it’s set, try not to eat all at once. It’s yummy, but if you eat more than three pieces at a time, you will feel sick. Don’t say we didn’t warn you. Everything in moderation, darling!