Melanie's Flourless Chocolate Cake

Simon's cousin Melanie asked me to give her a recipe she can make and I thought a chocolate cake would be just the thing. The beauty of this one is that it doesn't use any flour - it has hazelnut meal instead. I have made this many times but this time I took it out of the oven a little too early so the lovely high cake that came out of the oven collapsed a bit and became what you see below. Still, I covered it with icing to hide the imperfect look and it tasted just as good. Warning: this cake is very rich and won't do your waistline any good but it is AMAZING.




Ingredients:
35g cocoa powder
80ml hot water
150g dark eating chocolate
150g butter
295g brown sugar
100g hazelnut meal
4 eggs - separated


You don't need to buy hazelnut meal, just simply put 100g of whole hazelnuts in the food processor and whizz them up to make the meal (flour). Easy.


1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade
2. Grease a deep 20 cm cake pan and line it with baking paper
3. Blend cocoa and hot water in a large bowl until smooth
4. Melt the chocolate and butter together in a pan (no need to do it in a bowl over water, the butter will enable the chocolate to melt without any problem)
5. Add the melted chocolate and butter to the cocoa and mix together
6. Stir in the hazelnut meal and egg yolks
7. Beat the egg whites in a bowl until soft peaks form
8. Fold the egg whites into the chocolate mixture in two batches - this will help the cake to rise so it's important to keep the air in the egg whites, if you stir them in then the air will disappear
9.Pour the mixture into the pan and cook uncovered for 1 hour
10. Stand the cake in the pan for 15 mins after you take it out of the oven and then turn it onto a wire rack


I always serve this cake with ice-cream to reduce the richness of it. Here's what the cake should look like so try it out and let me know if you succeed better than me! For more great chocolate recipes, look for The Australian Women's Weekly book simply called 'Chocolate'.