Chocolate Jam Cake

This is a really plain looking cake which I adapted from Nigella Lawson's Store Cupboard Chocolate Orange Cake. Unless you're using a strongly flavored jam, you'd probably hardly taste the jam. The jam gives the cake a slight tanginess and importantly, moistness.

With the blueberry conserve, I had berries studded throughout the cake which gave a tangy burst whenever you bit into them. With Strawberry conserve, all I tasted was chocolate. A friend had suggested that you could probably glaze the cake surface with some melted jam, or even sandwich the jam in between horizontal slices (please wait till thoroughly cool before attempting this. The cake is very delicate when oven-fresh) to enhance the jam flavor.

Ingredients

A 10 Oz (275g) bottle of jam (Ive used Dalfour Blueberry Conserve, Smuckers Reduced Sugar Strawberry ... but you could use marmalade or any other jam)

A 220g (7.7 Oz) bar of good dark chocolate (I used Old Gold)
4 large eggs, beaten
200g self-raising flour
250 g butter (The entire standard block that you can find from the dairy shelves)
7 Oz (200 g) Dark Musvocado


Steps

Pre-heat oven to 180 deg Celcius.

Break chocolate into small pieces. It helps if its not fridge cold.

Melt butter in the microwave till almost all melted, the stir in chocolate pieces and leave to stand till soft. Stir till smooth.

Stir in musvocado sugar, eggs and jam.

Sift in flour, stirring by the spoonful. Be careful not to overmix, stirring just till combined and no more. If you overstir, the flour will turn to gluten and the cake'll be tough.

Line a 20 inch springform pan well with baking parchment.

Lining is very important because the base and sides will burn if not protected (probably due to the chocolate & jam? I once sat a silicon pan on the turntable of my convection microwave and the base did indeed burn) Also, this cake is delicate. Even if you're using a silicon pan, line it so that you can unmold it relatively intact without resulting in bits of broken off surface stuck to the base later.

Pour in the batter.

Bake in the middle shelf for 40-50 mins or until a skewer comes out clean. If the top is done but the skewer comes out still sticky, you might want to place a piece of aluminium foil on top of the cake.

Leave to cool in the pan. This is also quite important. I tried to unmold the cake once when it was fresh from the oven and it was way too delicate to unmold intact. Wait till the cake is thoroughly cooled, then release and serve.

If you refrigerate the cake cling-wrapped, it keeps fairly well for a few days. Fresh from the fridge, it will be quite hard. Just nuke a slice in the microwave for 15 seconds on high and it will be nice and soft for serving.