Chocolate & Almond Cake

I don't often read the Daily Mail; and neither had I been previously aware of Nadia Sawalha's cookery writing prowess - but this chocolate cake recipe really does rock. It tastes great; brilliantly doesn't contain an ounce of butter; and surely everyone's always banging on about how 'anti-oxidant-ey' dark chocolate is?! This cake really is a winner... and is super easy to make (unless you use 90% Dark Chocolate instead of 70% or similar... Its addition to the mix resulted very rapidly in a cement / superglue type consistency which was unsurprisingly very difficult to work with). Sorry for being sceptical - this is a very delicious low cholesterol chocolate cake.

Ingredients

  • 150g 70% Dark Chocolate
  • 35g Cocoa Powder
  • 80ml Water
  • 100g Ground Almonds
  • 100g Soft Brown Sugar
  • 4 Free Range Eggs
  • Icing Sugar (for dusting)

Pre-heat the oven to 180˚c

Line a 20cm round and 6cm deep cake tin with baking paper

Melt the Chocolate in a bowl over some hot water in a pan

Separate the Eggs

Whisk the Egg Whites until they are at the stiff peak stage (fluffy, and can stand up on their own; or when you can turn the bowl upside down and the mixture doesn’t fall out) – set aside

Separately, in a large bowl, whisk the Cocoa Powder and Water (don’t worry about washing the whisk up after the egg whites!)

Add melted Chocolate, Ground Almonds, Sugar and the Egg Yolks – whisk together

Now, fold the whisked Egg Whites into the Chocolate mixture (so you don’t lose any of the air in the cake)

Carefully pour the mixture into the cake tin and bake for 35 – 50 minutes (or until you can put a knife into the cake and it come out clean)

Serve with Raspberries, Strawberries or Kiwi – or with a delicious dollop of fat free Yoghurt?!

[From Nadia Sawalha's Greedy Girls Diet book - "Aunt Joooolah's Chocolate Cake" - published in Daily Mail magazine]

Tagged , , ,