Look at that cake. It is a cake that netted me several emails from my coworkers going ‘That looks amazing!’ (and they got several emails back in return going ‘Well, eat it!’ but I had to be the person who made the first slice after lunch in order to lure the hordes.) and then several emails that just went ‘NOM NOM NOM!’.

It is also a cake that is great if you’re avoiding wheat for whatever reason, as it uses almonds. I currently have to avoid wheat and my hivemind is Coeliac, so I am always on the look out for delicious but wheat free baking things and this delivered in spades.

It’s called ‘guilt free chocolate cake’ and is by Annie Bell, from her Gorgeous Cake book — which I borrowed off a coworker and has several wheat-free cakes for me to try, hooray! — and I thoroughly recommend it! Recipe behind the jump.

Annie Bell’s Guilt Free Chocolate Cake

4 medium eggs, separated
150g golden caster sugar
3 tablespoons cocoa powder, sifted
225g ground almonds
1 teaspoon baking powder, sifted

Filling
2 x 250g tubs of ricotta, drained
3 tablespoons set honey
4 tablespoons coarsely grated dark chocolate (70-85% cocoa solids) — I replaced this with strawberries.

Makes 1 x 20cm cake

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C fan/200°C/gas mark 6 and butter a 20cm cake tin 9cm deep with a removable base.
Stiffly whisk the egg whites in medium bowl – I use a handheld electric whisk for this.

Whisk together the egg yolks and sugar in a large bowl until pale and creamy. Fold the egg whites into the egg mixture in three goes, then fold in the cocoa, the ground almonds and baking powder.

Transfer the cake mixture to the prepared tin, smooth the surface and bake it for 35 minutes until the sponge has begun to shrink from the sides and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Run a knife around the edge of the cake and leave it to cool in the tin. Place the ricotta and honey in a food processor and whizz until smooth (if you do this by hand it will remain grainy).
Remove the collar from the cake, but you can leave it on the base for ease of serving.

Slit the cake in half, taking into account the height in the centre of the cake. Reserving a couple of tablespoons of the ricotta cream, spread the rest over the base and sandwich with the top half.

Spread the reserved cream in a thin layer over the surface of the cake and scatter over the grated chocolate (or in my case, place halved, hulled strawberries all over the top!) which should conceal all but the very edge of the cream.

Set aside in a cool place. If keeping the cake longer than a few hours, cover, chill and bring it back up to room temperature for 30-60 minutes before serving.

Because I’ve been asked for this recipe and I thought I should try to increase my food blogging (yes, yes, because I’m so good about blogging everything else). What this is, is a very robust, hard to screw up, incidentally-gluten-free* chocolate tart. The pastry shell is based on a 17th-century “pye” recipe and uses only nuts, egg white and a little sugar, which I got from Ann Willan’s Look & Cook Perfect Pies and Tarts

*Incidental, because there are no substitutions made– the recipe has no gluten and none of the usual starch substitutes, eg. potato flour, gluten-free flour, gram flour, etc.

The base recipe is this (below the cut):

200g of whole, shelled nuts (hazelnuts and almond both work).
60g of caster sugar
1 egg white

Filling:
275g dark chocolate, chopped into little bits
375g double cream
2 whole eggs
1 egg yolk.

In a blender, blitz the nuts and sugar until they’re ground pretty fine, but there are still some crunchy bits for texture.

Variation1 – I’ve used almonds (tried and tasted, good result), hazelnuts with a tsp of cinnamon (tried and tasted, good result), hazelnuts and mixed spices (not tried, but might be good for winter, sort of lebkuchen-ish), almonds, walnuts & cardamon? (not tried but it’s a classic combination. Maybe a little bitter?), almond or hazelnuts and nutmeg (not tried, but it’s nutmeg, so it’s good by default).

In a medium sized bowl, whisk the egg-white until frothy, then stir in the nut & sugar mixture until it’s all incorporated. Shape it into a rough ball, wrap it in cling film and slightly flatten it, and put it in the fridge for half an hour.

Meanwhile, butter a 23cm fluted pie dish and put the a baking trap in the oven and preheat to 190C.

Take the pastry out of the fridge. It’s too sticky to properly roll, but you can flatten it– use a rolling pin and flatten it out as much as you can. I tend to do this on the cling it went into the oven in, so that I can more easily flip it over into the pie dish.

Now, using either a cold metal spoon dipped in water or your hand, press the crust into the pie dish. I usually start with the spoon, then use my fingers to make sure it’s properly in the corner and covering the sides. It will look slightly rustic, but that suits the crunch texture of the crust.

Put it in the preheated oven on the baking tray for 10-15 minutes, until it’s started just starting to brown and it feels drier, less sticky. No need to chill it again (or prick the base or weigh it down). Now take it out of the oven and leave it to cool on a wire wrack.

Filling.

Put the finely chopped chocolate in a medium-sized bowl.

Variation 2 – all untried, but you could use flavoured chocolate (like Green & Blacks Maya), or you could add something to the chocolate here (ground ginger, for example)

In a heavy based saucepan, over a low to medium heat, bring the cream just to the boil. Pour over the hot chocolate and stir (with a spoon or whisk), until it’s thoroughly mixed.

Variation 3 – Fresh mint (tried and tasted, good)– roughly tear a large bunch of fresh mint and put it in the saucepan with the cream. Bring just to the boil, then take off the heat and leave covered for at least 15 minutes to infuse, then put back on the stove and bring just to the boil again. Strain the cream over the hot chocolate with a metal sieve. Other options (not tried, but I think they’d all work), you could try infusing with cardamon, cinnamon or even fresh basil or just adding a tbsp of kahlua or brandy. One thing, if you are infusing with something leafy, you might want to be a little more generous with the cream, since they seem to trap a lot, even when you squeeze them out pretty thoroughly. I used abut 75ml extra when I was infusing with mint.

In another medium-sized bowl, beat the eggs and egg yolk together. When the chocolate mixture is tepid, pour into the eggs and stir thoroughly to combine.

Pour into the pastry shell and put in the oven.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until it’s set on the outside, but the centre still feels soft.

Take out and let cool. Just to note, the surface of the chocolate isn’t 100% smooth– it’s slightly rough and you might notice a few microbubbles with (as far as I can tell) oil– possibly from the nuts, but maybe from the chocolate or even the cream. I just lay a piece of kitchen towel on the top to soak them up. It fits in with the slightly rustic feel of the pie and the crunchy base, but if you don’t like the look if it…

Variation 4- … you can decorate the surface with chocolate leaves. Melt about 100g of chocolate (white looks good, or you could do a mix), take some (non-toxic) leaves– rose leaves work very well. Brush the underside with melted chocolate and leave to set. When they’ve set, peel off the leave and arrange on the top of the chocolate tart. Or you could sift icing sugar on the top, or cocoa powder, or put chocolate curls over.

Close up on the two-stranded necklace made at a class at the Make Lounge. It’s a mix of green and cream with copper fixings. The class was taught by Juju Vail and was fantastic, I learnt a lot and I look forward to taking further classes with Juju – also I can not recommend the Make Lounge enough if you’re in London! They’ve got a shiny new place now and the range of classes has expanded to match and I can see a lot of my spare cash heading their way in the future.

Just off the needles, a pair of Nukins in Fyberspates sock yarn from my stash. I really like this pattern and can see it appearing a lot in the future because it’s ideal for commuting!

I do have to do some repairs on them though as it looks like I didn’t pick up a YO near the end but a wee bit of darning and it’ll be fine!

In the mean time, I’m swatching for Julia Trice’s Honeymoon camisole, in an attempt to make a dent in my stash/knit something other than socks, so hopefully there’ll be posts about that soon.

And as the weather is finally turning sunny, I plan to try my hand at some yarn dying with the kool aid I’ve been stockpiling – I have a balcony that is just waiting to be used as a drying rack!

I’m wearing them right now and they’re lovely and warm.

I’ve also recast on for the cardigan with the correct maths and look forward to a more successful attempt this time. I’ve also managed to locate a pencil in the depths of my pens and have plans to sketch out some possible patterns for the accidental yarn purchases I made recently (once my fingers defrost, brrrr!). :rubs hands:

And, my online shopping was delivered this evening. There’s an awful lot of things in there for baking, so hopefully there’ll be some more posts on that front coming up soon. I’m even investigating the interesting world of vegan baking, so stay tuned for that one.

I plan to recast on with the new maths once I get my Denise Interchangeables to co-operate and let me clip an extra length onto the needles I want to use, so it’s definitely not the last we’ll be seeing of that cardi, dangit.

What I did do while sulking was take advantage of my always growing collection of beads and make some earrings for my flatmates’ birthdays (conveniently both in the same week). I’m very pleased with both sets.

I also endeared myself to many people at work by making these Green Tea and Almond Biscuits and bringing them in for the library and the education department. I was rather pleased with the way they came out and look forward to trying my hand at a few more green tea powder related recipes. Mmm!

I have been busy outside of these things though. I’ve had two commissions for stitch markers recently which has kept me occupied, the WIPs on needles seem to be multiplying when I turn around and I’ve been dabbling in the art of preserving!

I’m particularly proud of the preserving as it’s been something I’ve wanted to try for ages but previous thought was too complicated. But, after a bumper harvest of blackberries from the local woods, I followed the really simple recipe in How to be a Domestic Goddess and ended up with four jars of Blackberry jam.

Only three remain as the fourth jar was opened as soon as they’d cooled down sufficiently so we could taste them. I’m very pleased with the way it came out, tart but still sweet and with bits of fruit still remaining.

I’ve also made four other preserving/bottling related items but they’ve all been ermarked as presents and at least two of the people read this blog! :seals lips:

I can show what’s on the needles though!

First up is yet another baby cardi. I’ve become far too fond of knitting baby garments. It’s all the fun of a whole item but with only half the knitting! This one is the French Fancy from July’s Simply Knitting and is actually a bit more advanced than the picture is. I’m halfway through the collar and then all that’s left is sewing it up and adding the buttons. This one is also going to my smallest cousin in New Zeland.

And also on the needles is the camisole from August’s Simply Knitting. I’m knitting it in the pattern yarn, which is Elle’s Cotton Fields and it’s the first time I’ve knitted with cotton. I must say, I love the drape and feel of the yarn.

I’ve been knitting this one while watching TV because once you get into the pattern, it’s pretty mindless. I’ve already started the decreases so it’s downhill from here on until I hit the crochet needed to join it up. Er.

Plus, the sock that continues to mock me is still around (Cursed heel!) as is the prototype for my knitted puddlejumper, which is waiting for me to finish the baby cardi so it can snaffle some of that yarn.

And the temperature changes have meant that I’ve been churning out Banana Bread like it’s going out of fashion, so all in all the crafty side of life is still going strong.

Cooking, with baking in particular, is my kryptonite. Leave me to my own devices and I will bake until the cows come home because as much as I enjoy cooking in general, there’s just something about baking that really scratches an itch.

This weekend I managed to get my sticky paws onto a copy of How to be a Domestic Goddess in my local cut-price bookstore. I then spent the rest of the weekend salivating quietly and making lists of things to try but by yesterday, it was clear that the first thing was going to have to be Flora’s Famous Courgette Cake, in a desperate attempt to use up some of the never ending courgettes that are taking over the allotment. (At the moment, dinner around here is all courgette, all the time.)

I will admit that I was slightly peturbed by the idea but in the end, it turned out beautifully. It’s moist, sweet and the lemon cream cheese icing just gives it enough sharpness. The rest of the family have declined to even try it, which is fine as that’s more for myself and my mother.

And then the internet demonstrated its hive mind capabilities: I was not alone in making this cake this weekend. After I’d grated my courgettes and left them to drain a bit, I wandered upstairs and checked my rss feeds and found that not only had Katie made it that day, she’d typed up the recipe as well! :hums twilight zone theme music:

I love how the internet is full of these little pleasures.