Spiced Chocolate and Almond Cake
A delicious chocolate and almond cake recipe - made for the 10th Anniversary of the FAIRTRADE Mark by Andrew Rose, Floridita, London.
Ingredients
- 300g Fairtrade dark chocolate
- 100g ground almonds
- 175g butter (softened)
- Fairtrade cocoa powder for dusting
- 175g Fairtrade sugar
- 1 tbsp mixed spice
- 25g plain flour (sieved)
- 6 eggs (separated)
Procedure
- Preheat oven to 170c
- Grease a 8 to 8 1/2-inch cake tin and dust well with Fairtrade cocoa powder.
- After separating the eggs, cream together the egg yolks and 130g of the sugar until they become light and fluffy.
- Mix together the ground almonds, flour and mixed spices.
- Whisk the egg whites and remaining sugar to stiff peaks.
- Melt the chocolate with the butter and leave to cool.
- Mix the melted chocolate and butter with the egg yolk mixture.
- Then fold in the whipped egg whites, starting with 1/3 of the mix followed by the rest.
- Finally, gradually fold in the flour mix, making sure that the batter remains light and aerated.
- Pour the finished batter into the cake tin and bake for approximately 1 hour or until the cake becomes firm and springy to the touch, when lightly pressed in the middle.
Once left to cool, slice and serve with clotted cream.
To use as a birthday cake, simply dust with icing sugar and arrange candles around the top.