Sunken chocolate amaretto cake with amaretti cream

This is one of those dark, squidgy-bellied chocolate cakes that I turn to when I have friends over to supper. The mixture of ground almonds and amaretto gives a marzipan kick, balancing the bitterness of the chocolate. The amaretti cream brings both smoothness and a fine honeycomb crunch to the velvetiness of the cake.

SERVES cuts into 10-12 slices

• Dark chocolate, 70% cocoa solids – 100g, roughly chopped

• Unsalted butter – 100g, soft, cut into cubes or dolloped in teaspoons, plus more for greasing

• Eggs – 4 large, at room temperature

• Caster sugar – 125g

• Ground almonds – 75g

• Cocoa – 2 x 15ml tablespoons, sieved if lumpy, plus 1 teaspoon for dusting

• Amaretto liqueur –

3 x 15ml tablespoons

FOR THE AMARETTI CREAM

• Double cream – 250ml

• Amaretto liqueur –

1 x 15ml tablespoon

• Amaretti biscuits – 4, crumbled

• 1 x 20cm springform cake tin

1 Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C Fan and lightly grease the sides and line the base of your springform cake tin with baking parchment.

2 Put the chocolate and butter into a heatproof bowl and melt, either over a pan of boiling water, making sure the bowl doesn’t touch the water, or in a microwave. Pour into a jug and leave to cool a little.

3 Whisk the eggs and sugar until thick and moussy and doubled, if not tripled, in volume. This will take 2-3 minutes, using a freestanding mixer, and 1-2 minutes longer with an electric hand whisk.

4 Fork the almonds and cocoa together in a small bowl to mix them thoroughly. Turn the mixer speed to low and gently whisk into the eggs and sugar, tablespoon by tablespoon.

5 Stir the Amaretto liqueur into the slightly cooled, melted chocolate and butter, then pour this glossy mixture in a slow, steady stream into the cake batter, whisking all the while; it will look like a fabulous chocolate mousse. Give a final fold by hand to make sure everything is smoothly and airily combined.

6 Pour and scrape the batter into the prepared tin. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes until the cake is beginning to come away at the edges, the top has formed a slightly cracked and bubbled thin crust the colour of pale milk chocolate – the cake will be dark and tender underneath – and a cake tester comes out with just a few damp crumbs cleaving to it.

7 Place on a wire rack, drape a clean tea towel over the tin and leave to cool. As it cools, the top of the cake will crack a little more, and it will sink slightly, leaving a frilly edge.

8 Once the cake is cold, unclip the tin and gently lift the cake out – remove the base only if you are very brave – on to a cake stand or plate. Press the teaspoon of cocoa through a fine tea strainer to dust the top thickly, rather like the coating on a chocolate truffle.

9 Just before serving, whip the cream and Amaretto together, until ripples start showing on the surface and it’s thickened but still soft enough to dollop alongside the cake. Very gently fold most of the crumbled amaretti biscuits into the cream, which will thicken it slightly more. Decant into a small serving bowl and sprinkle the rest of the amaretti crumbles on top.

The cake will be left with a frilly edge