Flourless Chocolate Cake

It’s Wednesday and it’s rainy, so surely it’s the perfect day for chocolate cake. This is rich, moist and perfect for cheering everyone up when it’s grey and horrible.

This started life as me attempting a chocolate mousse cake of my own invention a few years ago after I’d been dumped, but in my distressed state, plus my incompetence, it went wrong. Thankfully in the best way, and I’ve ended up making this an awful lot.

You need:

• 300g of good quality dark chocolate with a high cocoa content
• 6 medium eggs
• 55g caster sugar
• 150g unsalted, softened butter
• Small pot of double cream
• Fresh raspberries
• Cake tin with a removable bottom

Pre-heat the oven to 180°c/gas mark 4  and lightly grease your cake tin and line the bottom with grease-proof paper. I know this is an absolute faff, but I promise it will make all the difference.

Chop the chocolate into chunks and mix with the butter in a heat-proof bowl over a pan of simmering water, baking sure the bottom of the bowl doesn’t touch the water. Alternatively put in the microwave in short blasts until everything has melted together. Give it a good mix to bring it all together.

Separate the eggs into two big bowls, and whisk the egg whites until they form soft peaks. Whisk the yolks with the sugar until they’re gorgeously light and creamy and doubles in size.

Mix the chocolate into the yolks until everything has combined.

Fold the whites into this, it’ll look revolting at first but soon becomes a big, airy cake mix. Pour this into your cake tin and pop into the middle of the oven for about 40 minutes.

Pop a skewer into the cake and once it comes out clean it’s done – if the top is browning too much just pop some foil over the top. It should end up looking something like this:

Leave the cake to cool completely, be warned, it will sink a fair bit. What this loses in looks it makes up for in taste.

Whip the cream until it’s nicely thick and spread over the top of the cake, add raspberries, and then snuggle up on the sofa in front of a box set and eat until you feel slightly sick.