CHOCOLATE, RASPBERRY & BUTTERMILK CAKE
SERVES 10–12
“This is the fudgiest of all the chocolate cakes I know and it’s perfect, even without the raspberries on top. While it needs no accompaniment, there is nothing that can’t be improved with a big dollop of double cream” NADINE INGRAM, BAKER
220g good-quality dark chocolate (minimum 60% cocoa solids), roughly chopped 110g unsalted butter, cut into large cubes 4 eggs 90g light brown sugar 60g almond meal 60ml buttermilk 180g frozen raspberries
1. Preheat oven to 140°C. Line a 22cm springform cake tin with baking paper and dust with flour. Place chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water to melt, stirring occasionally with a spatula until melted and combined. Ensure water isn’t touching the bottom of the bowl and that the heat under the bowl is gentle so chocolate doesn’t burn.
2. Meanwhile, place eggs and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Beat on high speed for about 5 minutes until thick and fluffy (this is called a sabayon).
3. Once chocolate has melted, turn mixer off and pour chocolate straight into the bowl with the eggs, then add almond meal and buttermilk. Return bowl to the mixer, but use the lowest speed to gently mix ingredients together (as if you were folding it by hand). You’ll notice mixture is quite streaky at this point as the foam from the sabayon melds with the chocolate ribbons. After a few turns around the bowl, streaks will start to disappear – stop the whisk just before the last streak disappears. This will ensure a light batter that hasn’t been overworked. Remove bowl from mixer and use a spatula to scrape the base of bowl to ensure any chocolate that has fallen to the bottom is well combined.
4. Pour batter into prepared tin and bake for 45 minutes or until top of the cake has formed a crust. Remove from oven and cover with raspberries, gently pressing them into the surface. Don’t be tempted to scatter raspberries over the batter before baking as they will just fall to the bottom.
5. Return cake to oven for 30–40 minutes, or until centre is springy to touch. It can be hard to judge the readiness of this cake, but because it’s flourless it’s hard to overbake it! The centre will always remain lovely and gooey, so if you have any doubts just leave it in there. If you do need extra cooking time and the raspberries start to burn, you can easily cover cake with foil for the rest of baking time. If you decide to omit the raspberries, just bake for 1 hour in total.
6. Let the cake cool in the tin for at least 2 hours before you remove it. It can be difficult to cut because it is so sticky, but if you heat the blade of the knife with hot water and wipe it dry before slicing you will achieve a nice neat cut.