Swiped this recipe out of Nigella Lawson's Feast.
I don't have it in front of me, I suspect if you google the marvellous Interweb it'll be out there somewhere, but the recipe when something like this:
- 250 g good dark chocolate
- 125 g butter
- 6 eggs - 4 separated
- 125 g caster sugar
- 75 g caster sugar
- vanilla extract
Line base of 23" spring-release cake tin with circle of baking parchment. I love doing this as it feels all mathematical and precise. Reminds me of Mr Nuttall's geometric model making classes at school. We got to measure, cut out and make dodecahedrons, octahedrons 'n stuff out of nice crisp cardboard (during lunchtime activity club - and you explain this to the youth of today and they just wouldn't understand it). Mmmm, soothing 70's wonderfulness.
Melt chocolate & butter together - I did this in the microwave - stir and leave to cool a little. I did a mix of 70% cocoa butter content & dairy milk. About half and half. This worked just fine.
Whisk the 4 egg whites together until softly peaked, then whisk in the first batch of sugar until you have a fabulously glossy meringue mix. Not too stiff.
Stir the 4 egg yolks plus the other 2 eggs together with the second batch of sugar and a good tsp of proper vanilla extract. Mix well until sugar is absorbed. Then stir in the cooled chocolate/butter mix. Stir in a tablespoon of the beaten egg whites to slacken up the mix, then fold in the remaining whites in three batches. Don't over mix as you want to keep the air in the mixture.
Tip carefully into prepared tin, even out top and cook in oven at 180c for 35-50 mins. I wanted a well squidgy cake so I took it out at 35 mins and left it to cool. Expect it to collapse and just don't fight it. When it is cool, remove from tin & base and put on plate. Make the ganache (see next bit) and gently smear into the now collapsed cake.
Ganache:
- 125g dark chocolate
- 250 g double cream
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Melt chocolate in microwave, stir and let cool a smidge. Beat cream until softly peaking and then stir in the melted chocolate and vanilla. Stir to combine. Again, I mixed 70% stuff with dairy milk. All good.
Top with little sugar easter eggs. But I didn't have any of those, so I settled for some pretty sugar flowers. Adorable. It was further complemented with some brightly coloured pipecleaners twisted into amusing shapes. Weird. Tasted good, though.
This went down very well indeed with a bowl of strawberries & blueberries and some double cream to slake the richness.
Comments