Flourless chocolate cake

Mmmm, Winter. How are you? Thank you for visiting us, Winter. Don't get me wrong, I'll resent you pretty soon, but until then, I will relish the opportunity to bake warm apple tarts, sweet puddings, and rich flourless chocolate cakes.

  

This flourless chocolate cake recipe is, like most others, enhanced with a large helping of hazelnut meal. There is hardly a baked treat which is not made more delicious with the addition of hazelnut meal. Unless you are allergic to tree nuts, in which case, please take your anaphylactic self elsewhere, I'm scared!

(Selfish sidenote. I am slightly allergic to prawns. I get all tingly in the lips when I eat them. I still eat prawns. And they taste goooooood!)

Ok... so you want to make a flourless chocolate cake for someone super-special? And why wouldn't you? What sort of friend would you be if you didn't make this for your BFF in the first week of Winter. And the second, and maybe every week after that?

  

Ingredients

  • 200g good quality dark chocolate, chopped roughly (a good basic rule when cooking with chocolate - if you wouldn't eat it, you shouldn't cook with it)
  • 150g butter, chopped
  • 6 eggs, separated
  • 2/3 cup caster sugar
  • 1 1/2 cups hazelnut meal
  • icing sugar, to serve
  • double cream, to serve

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 170°C/150°C fan-forced. Grease a 6cm-deep, 20cm round cake pan, I use a springform for all my cakes, but regular is totally fine. Line base and side with baking paper.

  2. Combine chocolate and butter in a small saucepan over low heat. Stir until melted. Set aside to cool slightly.

  3. Place egg yolks and sugar in a bowl. Using an electric mixer, beat until thick and creamy. Add chocolate mixture. Beat to combine. Add hazelnut meal. Beat to combine.

  4. Place egg whites in a bowl. Using an electric mixer, beat until soft peaks form. Using a metal spoon, stir one-third of egg whites into chocolate mixture. Gently fold remaining egg white through chocolate mixture.

  5. Pour mixture into prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the centre has moist crumbs clinging. Remove cake tin from oven - wear an oven glove for this, I am clutching a bag of frozen peas with my right hand as I type - for someone who bakes regularly, I am really very unaware of just how hot things are when they emerge from an over after an hour. Ouch!

  6. Stand in pan for 10 minutes. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool.

  7. Before cutting into large wedges, dust the cake generously with sifted icing sugar. Plop a big dollop of double cream right next to this baby, and dig in. Seriously, if you have a shovel, go for it.

  

I have chocolate smeared on my fingers (and lips and face, if we're being totally honest), so I must leave you now. Enjoy!

Posted by Katy Potaty CUPCAKE LADY at Monday, May 24, 2010 7:23 PM
Categories: Baking/Recipes
 
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