Passover week 2022 - flourless chocolate espresso cake

Passover week 2022 - flourless chocolate espresso cake

• 4 Apr 2022

Every Passover I make a flourless chocolate cake and to date I've not repeated a recipe because there are so many out there.

This recipe comes from 'Old Food' by Australian writer Jill Dupleix. Jill adapted Julia Child's recipe for Reine de Saba or Queen of Sheba cake by doubling the amount of chocolate. The only change I made to the recipe to make it Passover friendly was to leave out the rum and I also reduced the baking time to 35 minutes to ensure a squidgy centre. I've made this cake a few times now usually with almond meal and on this occasion with hazelnut meal and whilst they're both nice, I think I prefer the cake made with hazelnut meal. 

Here's the recipe for you which makes a 17cm cake. If you'd like to make a larger cake you can try this recipe, adding 1-2 tbs warm espresso to the mix. For all my recipes I use a 250 ml cup, a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional oven so if you have a fan-forced oven you may need to reduce the temperature by 20°C. 

 

Flourless chocolate espresso cake, adapted from Old Food by Jill Dupleix.

Ingredients

Cocoa powder

125g 70% dark chocolate, chopped

1 tbsp strong, warm espresso coffee

85g caster sugar

85g unsalted butter, chopped

65g almond or hazelnut meal

3 eggs, separated 

Pinch salt

 

Method 

Heat the oven to 175ºC, conventional. Lightly grease and dust a 17cm round cake tin with cocoa; line the base with baking paper. 

Place the chocolate, coffee, sugar and butter in a bowl sitting in a pot of simmering water, making sure the base of the bowl does not touch the water. 

 

 

Once the chocolate has melted, remove from the heat and stir until well mixed. Add the ground nuts and mix well. Beat in the egg yolks one by one. Beat the egg whites in a clean, dry bowl with a pinch of salt until stiff and peaky and stir a couple of spoonfuls into the chocolate mixture to lighten it, before gently folding in the rest.

Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake for 35 - 45 minutes (less for squidgy and more for cakey) or until a skewer inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean.

 

Leave to cool before removing from the tin and don’t worry if the crust falls or collapses. That’s perfectly normal, if not desirable. Just before serving dust the top of the cake with cocoa.

 

See you all again tomorrow with some more baking for Passover week 2022.

 

Bye for now,

 

Jillian