250 Of Nearly Everything Chocolate Cake

Total Time: 1 hr 10 mins Preparation Time: 20 mins Cook Time: 50 mins

Ingredients

• Servings: 12
• 250 g salted butter
• 250 g bittersweet dark cooking chocolate, broken into squares (belgian is best)
• 8 eggs
• 250 g caster sugar
• 250 g ground almonds
• 150 g bittersweet dark chocolate, extra

Recipe

• 1 preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.
• 2 grease the base an 8-9inch diameter springform cake tin, and line with greaseproof or baking paper.
• 3 melt the butter and chocolate in a double boiler. stir every so often and set aside to cool when there are no lumps.
• 4 separate the eggs into two different bowls (put the yolks into a larger bowl).
• 5 beat the yolks, then add the caster sugar. beat until pale, thick and creamy.
• 6 add the almonds, and mix to combine well (ensure that there are no lumps of ground almonds).
• 7 add the chocolate mixture and stir until well combined.
• 8 beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
• 9 gently fold into the chocolate almond mixture until well combined.
• 10 pour into the prepared cake tin and bake for 40-50 minutes. make sure the top does not burn, when a skewer is inserted there will still be some mixture attached to it, but it will be soft as opposed to uncooked (sorry, this bit is hard to explain).
• 11 remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin.
• 12 when cool, remove from the tin. you will need to run a knife around the edges. put on a plate after having removed the baking paper on the base.
• 13 melt the remaining chocolate until there are no lumps (normally 2 or 3 squares go missing along the way!), and pour in stages over the cake until the chocolate is evenly spread down the sides and over the top.
• 14 this is very rich but is nice served with orange sorbet to cut through the richness.