berry-surprised father's day chocolate cake

The Nigella chocolate-orange cake never gets old, but since I just made it at the beginning of June for hubby's b-day, and then again a week after that, I thought I'd revamp it just a little for Dad's Day.

Last year I'd bought a (rare-in-Japan) can of jellied cranberry sauce, thinking I'd use it as a last resort if I couldn't find some of the whole-berry kind, but then I went and made my own sauce from dried cranberries and plum wine that ended up being perfect over cheesecake for Christmas.


I still had that can lolling around and haunting me for spending about US$5 on it. I wondered why I couldn't just go ahead and and blast it with my immersion blender, add it to the cake instead of the orange marmalade, and then add in some frozen mixed berries (raspberries, marionberries, and blueberries) that I recently purchased at Costco (don't even ask how much I paid for those beauts!). (I defrosted them a bit first but you probably wouldn't have to.)

So that's what I did. I'm sure if you had cranberry curd (which I still can't wait to try) or jam, it would work just as well.



The cake ended up being uber moist and WAY delish - if I do say so myself. I'm really partial to the berry-choco combo and this just worked. It worked WELL.

Oh, and for those of you out there who asked me last time about leavening for the cake, I realized I did use Japanese bread ("strong") flour last time I baked the choco-orange version, and this time for the berryfied beauty as well, and it rose nicely and stayed firm.

This is wonderful freshly baked and still warm, or even more amazing after it's chilled in the fridge. I'm sure you could jazz it up with some very slightly sweetened whipped cream and some mint leaves or extra berries on top, but we ate it as it was and it was perfect for us.

I just love cake cracks, don't you? Makes me feel all homey inside.