This torta stracciatella (aka chocolate chip cake) is a delicious blend of light sponge and dark chocolate.
I found the original recipe for this choc chip cake at My Little Italian Kitchen. But the original recipe was for a large circular tin and I wanted to use my loaf tin… so I decided to reduce all the original quantities by a third. As you’ll see below, this means some of my amounts are a bit odd, but it works!
Ingredients (this makes enough mixture for my 29 x 10 cm loaf tin):
- 100 g / 3.5 oz sugar
- 2 eggs
- 66 ml vegetable oil (you can use sunflower oil or corn oil, for example)
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
- 200 g / 7 oz self-raising flour
- 133 ml milk (I used skimmed milk, but you can use whatever you have in the fridge)
- 100 g / 3.5 oz dark chocolate chips (I just chopped up dark chocolate into small “chip” sized pieces).
Method:
Prepare your tin. Whatever size or shape you end up using, grease the inside with butter and line with greaseproof baking paper. My loaf tin’s internal dimensions are 29 x 10 x 7 cm (approx. 11 x 4 x 3 inches). Handily, it’s from IKEA so I’m sure you can all get one if you wish! It’s in the Drommar range – you can see it in the picture below.
Pre-heat your oven to 160 degrees C / Gas Mark 4 / 320 degrees F. The original recipe suggests a higher temperature, but I found the top of the stracciatella choc chip cake was cooking too quickly and I had to turn the temperature down half way through and use a tinfoil hat to stop it burning, so I’d suggest using a lower temperature.
Separate your eggs. Put the whites to one side. If you have an electric mixer, use it to beat the yolks together with the sugar until you have a pale creamy mixture (if you don’t have a mixer, you’ll have to rely on elbow grease). Add the oil gradually while mixing, then the vanilla essence and the flour. Add the milk and stir thoroughly to get a mixture that looks like this:
In a separate bowl beat the egg whites until stiff (use electric hand beaters if you have them, otherwise I’m afraid it’s a lot of hand whisking!). Gently stir the beaten egg whites and the chocolate pieces into the rest of the mixture until the ingredients are thoroughly combined:
Pour your mixture into your prepared tin. It filled about half the depth of my loaf tin (about 4 cm), leaving plenty of space for it to rise:
Bake your stracciatella cake for 45 minutes or until golden brown and a knife inserted into the cake comes out clean.
Leave your choc chip cake to cool in the tin for 5 minutes before transferring it to a wire rack to cool completely.
To decorate I simply dusted the top of the stracciatella cake with some icing sugar. Simple!
This cake keeps nicely in an air-tight container for a few days. However, it’s extra-lovely when slightly warm, fresh from the oven, because the chocolate in the middle is still a little gooey. Mmmm!
I’m not the greatest fan of dark chocolate, but in this cake it’s absolutely delicious 🙂
And if you’re looking for other recipes featuring chocolate mixed through sponge cake:
Foolproof mint chocolate muffins featuring Mint Aero.
Snickers muffins with two-colour buttercream swirl.
It looks divine 🙂
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Thank you! I was worried that all the chocolate chips would sink to the bottom, but they were nicely dispersed throughout. And although I’m not a great fan of dark chocolate, it’s lovely with the sponge.
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I’m not particularly fond of dark chocolate but in those amounts and in that cake I think I could cope.
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Wow!
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Thank you! It’s very nice, particularly if you can scoff a slice soon after it comes out of the oven 🙂
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*drooling*
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yum that would be lush with some custard 🙂
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Ooo, yes! Or cream or icecream…mmm… 🙂 I’m glad it’s tea time soon!
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Ooo this sounds and looks really lovely. And did someone mention custard!?
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That was Tracy’s excellent idea 🙂
Ice cream or some chocolate sauce would also be nice!
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This looks so good 🙂
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It was very nice. I hoped it would last a few days but… no. 2 days and it was all gone!
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Haha with my family and me, it would be a miracle if it even lasted that long 😉
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mmmm. this looks really yummy. If i made it it would be gone in less than a minute!
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Thank you! I think about half of the cake was eaten within the hour it came out of the oven 🙂
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Looks lovely. Will pin!
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Thank you very much! 🙂
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Looks great
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Thank you! 🙂
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My goodness this looks absolutely incredible! I am DEFINITELY going to be trying this soon! For now, my mouth is watering at the thought….
Thanks for sharing ❤
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Thank you!
It’s delicious. If you can eat a bit when the cake is still warm, the chocolate in the centre is gooey and it’s just beautiful 🙂
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Looks wonderful!!!
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Thank you! I was very pleased with how it turned out 🙂
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Looks delicious! I’ll have to keep your recipes in mind if I want to do some baking 🙂
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Thank you! Let me know if you do and how it goes 🙂
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You’re welcome. I definitely will 🙂
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Oh, another one I might have to pinch, even though I don’t have that IKEA cake tin (drömmar means “dreams”, by the way which really fits! haha)
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Any cake tin would do! I LOVE that the people at IKEA called their baking tins range “dreams”! 🙂 That’s made my day!
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Lovely 😍😍
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Thank you! It was delicious and vanished in less than 38 hours 🙂
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I want that. I hate you. DIET, woman. I’m on a DIET! And here you are tempting me with deliciousnesses.
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Sorry! But a small slice probably wouldn’t do any harm? Another blogger also hates me because I unintentionally post these things on her fasting day
I think I’d have to avoid the Internet until I could eat again!
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lol! Yeah, people just have to practice moderation. Its just fun to gripe at people who post good looking food. Especially when I’ve PROVEN I can boil water dry 2 times in one meal.
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Looks lovely!
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Thank you 🙂 It was very nice. I’m not usually a fan of dark chocolate but in this cake it worked really well.
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It is really delicious looking Claire!
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I have this in the oven now! Hoping it looks as delicious as yours. I tweeked it slightly to make it gluten free. So hope it works. Thanks for sharing all your delicious recipes.
Amanda.
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I’m so glad this worked out for you 🙂 And brilliant that you could make it gluten free.
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