Chocolate Fudge Icing

Asked by bernie8t3. Answered on 22nd April 2015

Full question

Hi there. I'm going to make Nigella's Chocolate Fudge Cake but I don't like chocolate that has a too high percentage of cocoa solids because I find it way too bitter. Even though the fudge icing has icing sugar in it I still find it too bitter. What can I use to make it sweeter? Thanks.

Our answer

Nigella's Chocolate Fudge Cake (from Nigella Bites and on the Nigella website) is a rich chocolate cake with a fudge icing that uses dark chocolate with 70% cocoa solids. Many cooks prefer to use chocolate with a high percentage of cocoa solids as it has a more intense flavour that helps to boost the flavour of the cake. Also sometimes the high percentage of cocoa solids is needed to help to set a mixture.

In the fudge icing of the Chocolate Fudge Cake it would be possible to use a chocolate with a slightly lower cocoa solids content, but not too low. We would avoid using most milk chocolates as they contain a high proportion of sugar and vegetable fats and may make the icing taste too sweet, as well as possibly not setting quite as well. Try to use a good quality dark (semisweet) chocolate that has cocoa solids of down to 50%. This should still have enough chocolate flavour for the icing without too much bitterness, as well as still allowing the icing to set. The cheaper dark chocolates contain only around 35% cocoa solids and lots of vegetable fat so we would prefer to avoid these, if possible.