Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s chocolate cake

It’s been a while since I posted something that wasn’t a book review, so let’s have the recipe for a really excellent chocolate cake that I made last week.  I found the recipe online, but I believe it originally comes from HFW’s River Cottage Everyday.  As you can see above, it was incredibly oozy given the just 30 minutes that the recipe called for — when the cake was refrigerated, this only meant that the centre was wonderfully soft, but you couldn’t just keep it out as at room temperature it was basically liquid.  Either keep in the fridge or bake for another 10-15 minutes, I’d say.

Ingredients

250g dark chocolate, broken into chunks (I used a mixture of dark and milk choc)
250g butter, cut into cubes
4 medium eggs, separated
200g caster sugar (or 100g caster mixed with 100g soft light brown sugar)
50g plain flour
50g ground almonds

Method

Preheat oven to 170°C/ gas mark 3 and grease a 23cm springform cake tin and line the base with baking parchment.

Melt butter and chocolate together.  In another bowl whisk the egg yolks and sugar until well combined.  Mix the chocolate and egg-and-sugar mixtures together.  Combine the flour and almonds (sieve them through) and add these to the mix.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until they hold firm peaks. Stir a large spoonful of egg white into the chocolate mixture to loosen it, then carefully fold in the rest of the egg whites with a large metal spoon or spatula, trying to keep in as much air as possible.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin. Place in the oven and bake for about 30 mins, until only just set.  Leave to cool for 10-15 mins before releasing the tin.