Listen up spice lovers, this recipe is going to spice up your chocolate cake and blow your mind! The star anise on my cake is purely decorative (if slightly misleading, sorry), as I actually used cardamom for my spice, but I just love the look of the star anise and you can use either spice. The cardamom I highly recommend it gave a really delicate warmth and aroma to the cake, without being too overpowering.

Ingredients:

For the cake:

• 225g good quality plain dark chocolate
• 115g unsalted butter
• 4 large eggs, plus 2 egg yolks
• 115g caster sugar
• 50g plain flour, sifted
• 2 tsp ground star anise or ground cardamom
• 50g fresh white breadcrumbs

For the syrup:

• 300ml strong black coffee
• 115g caster sugar
• 2tbsp kahlúa or other coffee liqueur (I used Tia Maria)
• 3 cardamom pods or 1 star anise

Preheat your oven to 190°C/fan oven and 170°C/Gas 5, and grease and base line a deep 20cm round cake tin.

Melt the chocolate (225g) and butter (115g) together in a bowl set over a pan of gently simmering water. Then let it cool slightly.

Whisk together the eggs (4) and egg yolks (2) with sugar (115g) in a bowl until the mixture is pale and thickened.

Grind your spices if you need to, then sift the flour (50g) and ground cardamom or star anise over the mixture, add the breadcrumbs and melted chocolate, and fold together with a large metal spoon. The only thing about this cake that isn’t amazing is the raw mixture, the breadcrumbs are an odd texture I find so if you’re looking to eat loads of your raw mixture (which I often am) then this isn’t the cake to make.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and level the surface. Bake for 35 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean, with my oven this is usually before the allotted time is up.

While your cake is baking in the oven and smelling delicious you can get cracking on the syrup. Put the coffee and sugar in a pan and heat gently until the sugar is dissolved. Increase the heat and boil the mixture for about 5 minutes or until it has reduced and thickened slightly. Stir in your coffee liqueur of choice and either your star anise (1) or cardamom pods (3) and keep warm.

When your cake is ready, pierce the surface of the cake with a skewer and then drizzle half of the coffee syrup over it before setting aside to cool. Serve with the remaining coffee syrup to pour over and crème fraîche if you fancy it!

The flavour of this cake is really beautiful and it’s ridiculously moist. If you give it a go tag me on Instagram or message me and tell me what you thought! x