Prep Time: 19 minutes
Cook Time: 50 minutes
Total Time: 60 minutes
This is a beautifully dense, gluten free cake. Serve with plain whipped cream or good double cream to cut through the richness. Try to buy good quality cooking chocolate, it really makes a huge difference to the taste.
Ingredients
- 200 g (7 oz) dark cooking chocolate
- 150 g (5 oz) unsalted butter
- 110 g (4 oz) castor sugar
- 4 eggs, separated, at room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
- 65 g (2.3 oz) pecans, chopped roughly
- 150 g (5 oz) hazelnut meal (ground hazelnuts)
- 1 tbsp cocoa powder
- Whipped cream to serve, if desired
Instructions
- 1. Preheat oven to 180c
- 2. Prepare 20 cm (8”) round tin by greasing and lining with baking paper.
- 3. Break the chocolate into pieces and place in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir until chocolate is melted and then set aside to cool a little.
- 4. Cream the butter and sugar until pale.
- 5. Add the egg yolks, vanilla essence, pecans, hazelnut meal and cocoa powder, stir to combine.
- 6. Pour the melted chocolate into the mixture and stir to combine.
- 7. In a new clean bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
- 8. Gently fold the egg whites into the chocolate mixture, until just combined. Try not to overwork the mixture at this point.
- 9. Pour mixture into prepared tin, and bake for 50 minutes.
This recipe is a Guest Contribution from The No Salt Spot which is home to heaps of other recipes low in sodium, and pack in as much flavour as they can using herbs and spices.