Cocoa For Chocolate Fruit Cake

Asked by lyndysolouless. Answered on 15th May 2016

Full question

Nigella's online recipe for Chocolate Fruit Cake uses 4 tablespoons of cocoa, however my copy of Nigella's book 'Nigella Christmas' and several other sites the recipe uses only 2 tablespoons of cocoa. Which quantity is best? I made it last Christmas with 2 tablespoons of cocoa and it resulted with just a hint of chocolate flavour, but still extremely moist and delicious. Yum!

Our answer

The Chocolate Fruit Cake featured on Nigella.com is actually taken from Nigella's book FEAST and is a slightly different version to the Incredibly Easy Chocolate Fruit Cake that appears in NIGELLA CHRISTMAS. The first version appeared in the Chocolate Cake Hall Of Fame and has a slightly deeper chocolate flavour as well as more of an orange hint to it, with the inclusion of candied peel and extra orange zest and juice. The Christmas version has less cocoa and orange and veers more towards the traditional Christmas cake flavourings.

The cocoa content can be varied according to personal taste. However cocoa absorbs a lot of liquid, so if you do make the version from CHRISTMAS and use 4 tablespoons of cocoa powder then you may like to add 2 tablespoons of extra orange juice or water to the cake mixture to make sure that the cake stays as moist as the version already tried.