Claire's Flourless Chocolate Cake
Posted:
September 24, 2020
Categories:
Recipes
Serves8
Minutes45 + cooling
Difficulty3/10
Ingredients
- 200g dark chocolate (c70% cocoa solids), chopped
- 150g unsalted butter chilled & cubed
- 5 eggs, separated
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 100g light soft brown sugar
- 50g ground almonds or instant polenta
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt, crushed
- 1 teaspoon ancho (or any mild) chilli powder - optional
To decorate: sifted icing sugar & cocoa powder to dust
Equipment
- 22cm loose-based cake tin, greased & lined with baking parchment
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180 C
- Put the chocolate and butter in a saucepan and melt over a low heat (watch it to ensure the chocolate doesn't burn!) & set aside to cook
- Cream the egg yolks, vanilla & sugar together in a large bowl until creamy & lighter in colour
- In a clean, grease-free bowl, whisk the egg whites with a handheld electric mixer until stiffly peaking
- Gently mix the cooled chocolate mixture into the egg yolk mixture and then add the ground almonds (or polenta), sea salt & chilli if you are using
- Gradually fold the egg whites into the mixture using a metal spoon - as gently as you can so that you don't lose the air in the eggs
- Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes until the cake has risen and a skewer comes out clean.
- The cake will sink as it cools, so don't worry when that happens.
- Once cool, decorate however you fancy - a simple sprinkling of cocoa powder or icing sugar will look lovely
- To create the effect in the picture, create a stencil (in what whatever shape you like) with a sheet of paper. Then liberally dust the entire cake in sifted icing sugar. Then gently place the stencil on top & dust through the cut-out shape with cocoa powder to finish.
- I love to serve this with creme fraiche & raspberries