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!