Oh, Johnny Depp, be still my beating heart. There are two things in life guaranteed to get my ticker racing: hot chocolate and an even hotter Johnny Depp. When the opportunity arose to, erm, “appreciate” his film Chocolat on the big screen while being fed handcrafted chocolate truffles I could not resist. It’s a gorgeous film, which I strongly recommend seeing whilst in posession of a great deal of quality chocolates because your mouth will water throughout. For at least two reasons, ladies, amiright?

Some wonderful person has spliced all the best Johnny Depp moments into the one 2 minute video. If you need a quick pick-me-up, hunt down a piece of chocolate and let it melt slowly in your mouth while watching the above and going to a happy place. I’m not ashamed to say that it verges on a religious experience. Now off you go, I’ll let you have a quick moment …

I am, however, ashamed to say that I went through my chocolate gift bag in less than 24 hours. Left with a chocolate hangover and craving more chocolate and almond buttons, I got my fix through this recipe for a rich, fudgey chocolate and almond cake. Bearing close similarity to a giant fudge brownie, this flourless chocolate cake is just melted chocolate, butter and almonds, with a little egg to help glue it together. I believe Charlie Sheen would call this “winning”.

It’s rich, dark and handsome, just like my man-crush.
Goes great with a serve of whipped cream, just like . . . oh nevermind.

FLOURLESS CHOCOLATE CAKE

Ingredients
•    200g Dark Chocolate, chopped
•    125g Unsalted Butter, chopped
•    225g Brown Sugar
•    100g Almond meal (can use hazelnut meal if you prefer)
•    100g Almonds, coarsely chopped (optional)
•    5 large Eggs, separated
•    1 pinch of Cream of Tartar
•    1 tablespoon of cocoa powder
Directions
1.    Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Line the base and sides of a 20cm round cake tin with non-stick baking paper.
2.    Make a “double-boiler” to melt the chocolate and butter: Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil. Place the chopped chocolate and butter into a heatproof bowl and place the bowl over the hot saucepan to allow the ingredients to melt. Stir occasionally.
3.    Once all is melted, stir in the brown sugar, almond meal and almonds until the mixture is smooth. Allow to cool slightly, then add the egg yolks gradually, stirring each time.
4.    Meanwhile, place the five egg whites into a clean dry bowl with a pinch of cream of tartar. The egg whites will form the structure of the cake, so it’s important they’re well beaten. Using a hand whisk, electric beater or stand mixer, beat the eggs slowly at first until they are foamy and then gradually increase the speed every few minutes. (If you go straight to high speed, you increase the chance of your cake collapsing). Continue beating until firm peaks form. Don’t worry if you overbeat the eggs because you’ll beat some of the air out next.
5.    Gently fold the egg whites into the chocolate mixture. The chocolate mix is quite heavy, so don’t worry if you need to stir quite a bit at this stage. Stop when the eggs are just incorporated with the chocolate.
6.    Pour the cake batter into the tin and bake for 45-50 minutes until a firm crust forms on the top. A skewer test is not necessary. Leave the cake to cool completely in the tin before attempting to remove. Once cool, sift cocoa powder over the top.

Tagged as: Almondmeal, Almonds, Brown sugar, Chocolate, Cocoa powder, Dark chocolate, Eggs, Nuts