If you like chocolate, it’s just possible that you might like this one, it’s Chocolatey with several capital Cs and easy to make as well, naturally. Serves somewhere between 8 and 16 people depending on how much other lovely food you’ve just fed them and how big their pudding stomachs are. Ideal for eating whilst on an utterly relaxing Mountain Retreat …
Ultimate Chocolate Cake
200g Dark chocolate (70% cocoa)
100g milk chocolate
1 tbl cocoa powder
125g unsalted butter
5 free range eggs, separated
125g Caster sugar
140ml double cream
Grease a 10″ round cake tin and line the bottom. If you haven’t started using them yet, pre-cut greasproof circles are on my top 10 list of a smile-inducing culinary inventions 🙂
Break the chocolate into a bowl, add the butter and the cocoa. If you’ve got an Aga, stand the bowl on the black top and let the chocolate gradually melt, stirring occasionally. If you haven’t got a lovely Aga in your kitchen, stand the bowl over some boiling water and heat it very gently till melted.
An electric whisk highly recommended for the next bit: In one bowl whisk together the egg yolks and sugar till thick and creamy coloured. In a different bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff.
When you’ve finished whisking everything, add the melted chocolate mixture to the egg yolk mixture, then carefully fold in the egg whites. Gently, gently.
Pour the mixture into the tin and bake in the roasting oven with cold shelf above (conventional oven, 180C) for 25 minutes. It should still be a bit wobbly when it comes out of the oven – that’s ok, it sets more as it cools.
Once the cake has cooled, take it out of the tin and tart it up a bit – a sprinkling of icing sugar and casually scattered raspberries suit it well, or black cherries in some alcohol would also add a certain dark sophistication. Then just add a bit of cream, mascarpone, or a light cream cheese to set it off to perfection. Mmmyumnumnum….
This is a gluten free cake! But not especially dairy free. Or indeed calorie free. Never mind, get out for a walk then have some more!
Warning: Making this cake can cause, well, this:
Relaxing Mountain Retreats with Plenty Of Cake
Cake Eating Retreats (*)
(*) Also massage, coaching, beautiful relaxed walks, & two cuddling cats if wanted
