recipe: flourless chocolate cake

It didn't really occur to me to actually post the recipe for this, but a few people asked for it so here it is :D

250g dark cooking chocolate (I recommend Lindt dark chocolate)
100g caster sugar
100g unsalted butter, cubed
1 tbs coffee-flavoured liqueur (optional - I used vanilla syrup)
125g hazelnut meal
5 eggs, separated

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Grease 23cm round springform tin and line the base with baking paper.

2. Place the cooking chocolate, sugar, butter and liqueur in a heatproof bowl. Melt over a double boiler. Stir occasionally to ensure even melting and mixing. When fully melted remove from heat and mix thoroughly.

3. Transfer chocolate mixture to a large bowl. Stir in hazelnut meal, then beat the egg yolks in one at a time, mixing well after each addition. In a dry bowl, whisk egg whites until they form stiff peaks. Gently fold in the rest using a rubber spatula (or large metal spoon).

4. Pour mixture into tin and bake for 50-60 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted. Leave to cool completely in the tin before turning out and dusting with icing sugar.

Courtesy of "THE ESSENTIAL BAKING COOKBOOK"

baked polenta

I haven't experimented much with polenta actually, and the first time I tried making it myself it sort of turned out like mush.

Corn seems to have a great relationship with cheese and I approve wholeheartedly, which is probably why I am such a fan of this dish. Polenta, stock, mozzarella (lots), parmesan (also lots), tomato and prosciutto - a winning combination. Such a simple dish. Cook the polenta in the stock. Add cheese and stir. Add tomatoes and prosciutto and stir. Bake. Add more cheese on top. Bake. Eat! Love it.

Probably the trickiest thing about this dish for me was finding a prosciutto with no preservatives or anything that I couldn't eat. I finally found one that was just pork and salt, it wasn't cheap, but it was worth it.

Today confirmed my theory that you can pretty much throw whatever you like into polenta and bake it. This is really exciting for me because it opens up a lot other "take away" (and by that I mean make at home and take to work) options for lunch for me because lately I have been really scraping the bottom of the barrel for easy to heat up at work options. I'm just not sure I'll move away from the cheese combination ;)

back to baking

I am the first to admit that I am quite terrible at keeping this thing up to date. However today comes with such greatness!!! I was finally motivated to make interesting tasty food again, which I just haven't felt like doing for a long long time. And I have reaped the benefits.

This flourless chocolate cake is just the right texture, moist, a little burnt on one side, but I blame my oven for that mostly and yet just so delicious!! It's very rich and quite crumbly, great with ice cream. The last time I tried this cake it collapsed in the middle, but this time, I am not sure what I did different, but it was perfect all the way around.

I did learn that chocolate really does expire though. It surprised me. I found some nice caramel chocolate that had an expiry of about a year ago, and I thought I'd give it a go anyway. No good. It didn't melt very well, and it sort of had a coagulated consistency by the end of it. So I tossed it out and started again.

If you are trying to do any baking with chocolate, I definitely advice using good quality (non expired) chocolate. For this cake I have used bittersweet dark lindt chocolate. Very smooth, but no barely or malt, just good chocolate things. I do tend to use it in quite a lot of my chocolate cooking.

Hazelnut meal is the base for this cake, and not that much is needed. It seems to be less oily than almond meal. The flavour is different, but I can't pinpoint what the difference is yet. It works quite well with this cake because it binds with the chocolate rather than just co-existing.

All in all I am a happy camper, cake is good for me, especially when I know exactly what's in it. Let me know if you want the receipe!

The Final Challenge

I was at breaking point, ready to throw in the towel and give up on everything when I decided to take on one final challenge. In my mind it was try this and/or accept that nothing else would work at making me feel better and I may as well go back to eating all that food that makes me terrible.

I gave myself 12 weeks – because I know things don’t happen overnight. 12 weeks to at least have the trend of feeling better be more than the trend of feeling crap. But this was going to take fairly drastic measures. So here they are.

The De-tox
What I really wanted was to take all of my digestive organs and either replace them or wash them so thoroughly to get rid of all the toxins building up in my system from the last 12 months. So it seemed logical to me to do a de-tox. I started a 15 day de-tox by Quick Cleanse.

The main components of this de-tox are: take their pills as scheduled, no processed foods and sugars, no alcohol and no animal products. Lots of raw fruits and vegetables, and lots of water.

The Personal Trainer
My last post mentioned that I had started to feel the squeeze in a big way, and that was compounded by the fact that I had lost the motivation and energy to exercise. Not that I did anything athletic before, but I certainly did a lot more yoga, pilates and walking. So obviously going from low to no level of activity wasn’t helping. Now anyone who knows me knows that I hate the gym, a lot, a real big lot. But something had to be done and clearly I wasn’t doing very well on my own. So I decided to join a gym and get a personal trainer for the 12 weeks.

I was very specific about the type of personal trainer I wanted and their qualifications. I needed someone who would be able to take all my dietary constraints and symptoms, and get me to a point where my physical state was starting to improve. I explained some of my symptoms and was clear that I wasn’t expecting to lose the 7 kilos I had gained in 12 weeks, but I was expecting a downward trend. I was even ok with the fact that the scales may not change at all, as long as my body composition had something to show for it – that I fit my old clothes again. My theory was that if I had less body fat to bloat, then bloating wouldn’t be so bad, right?

The Nazi
While my diet is already quite restrictive, my eating patterns are not. In fact I am quite lazy. When I find something I like, then I will just eat the same time over and over and over again. But part of my condition is that I have to rotate food to avoid a build up for particular chemicals in my system.

So not only am I looking at what I can and can’t eat, I’m also looking at when or how often I can eat it. This also means being more prudent at meal planning. So instead of cooking one big bucket of something and eating it all week, I now have to plan each meal of each day for the week.


So there you have it – the final challenge to myself. I am currently 10 weeks into the 12 weeks, and it is working for me. It’s not perfect obviously, but I can say with certainty that I do feel better, I am starting to fit my clothes again, and I have had much less craziness. The trend on the feeling better is definitely on the up.