Less sugar, more chocolate

People tell me the chocolate cake tastes stronger than it used to. It is the same chocolate. There is just less sugar in the way.

Sugar does real work in a cake — it holds water, it keeps the crumb soft, it browns the top. Take too much out and you get something dry that tastes virtuous. So the recipe makes it up elsewhere: a darker chocolate in the ganache, a little salt in the sponge, and the cherries on top doing the job the sugar used to.

The test I use is the second slice. A cake that is too sweet is lovely once and heavy after. This one you can eat at four in the afternoon and not want to lie down.