MOCHA CLOUD CAKE

When I crave chocolate, I crave this.

A good, cloyingly rich cake that is… interesting to look at, but an absolute experience to taste.

It’s a flourless cake, which means that it doesn’t have the crumbly, flaky sponge you usually expect. What you have in its stead, is an intense, melting fudge like consistency held up by an egg-formed cloud like architecture.

I have a cardamom and pomegranate infused incarnation of this cake here but like I said, when I crave chocolate, I want this cake in it’s unaltered form.

There is no ponsing about with cocoa powder here. The chocolate in this cake comes from three (I said THREE, god damn it) chocolate bars that are blitz in with the rest of the ingredients and melted with some strong coffee.

You get oozing dollops of chocolate throughout this cake making it both light as air but as rich as a billionaire.

The best part about this recipe is that 80% of it comes together in a food processor, so there’s not much messing about with creaming and beating and sieving and all that nonsense.

It’s a no-messing mocha infused chocolate cake with no bells and whistles. Yes, it kind of looks like something you would put on your head and wait for it to scream out the House you belong in, but make no mistakes – this is the ultimate chocolate cake for any chocolate fiend.

Grease and line a 23cm springform cake tin and preheat the oven to 180c. In a food processor, drop in 230g of caster sugar. Break up 300g (YES… I STILL MEAN THREE HUNDRED!) of dark chocolate, still in their packets, before opening them and dropping the shards into the processor.

Run the processor motor on these for a good few minutes so that the chocolate and sugar create a dark rubble.

Add 230g of butter to the processor (just in ripped up dribs and drabs on top of the chocolate rubble) before drizzling in a teaspoon of vanilla extract.

Now separate 6 eggs – the yolks into the processor and the whites in a big bowl.

I do this like an animal by cracking the egg on the edge of the bowl, carefully tipping the contents of the egg into my palm and gently cradling it back and forth from palm to palm as the whites fall into the bowl until I have the yolk left in my hand.

With the 6 yolks in the processor, add two teaspoons of strong instant coffee to a jug and pour in boiling water to the 180ml mark.

Stir and pour into the food processor. Run the motor and blitz everything to a dark, treacly batter.

Now – either using an electronic whisk or a really determined forearm – whisk the whites until they double in volume and create stiff peaks when the whisk is pulled out.

Despite the fact this cloud of egg whites look so soft and angelic, it’s time to butcher them.

Pour the chocolate mixture from the processor into the bowl of clouds. Using a rubber spatula (for ease!) FOLD the chocolate into the cloud. Do this slowly but firmly. You want to keep the clouds as robust and big as possible as this is what will give your cake the ‘rise’.

Once everything folded in and there are no pockets of white in your batter, pour into your prepared tin. Slide into the oven and bake for 50 minutes.

Don’t be deceived by this cake. When you pull it out not only will it wobble slightly but it will also be risen like a proud mum at a Graduation.

Give it a bit to rest on a cooling rack. It will soon sit and settle down… as mums should in Graduations.

Once the cake has cooled completely, you could tuck into it. However, I would advise putting it in the fridge overnight (still in its tin) so that it can set even more and become SUPER fudgy.

I serve it up with a gentle spoonful of cream and maybe even a further grating of dark chocolate, but I wouldn’t judge you for literally eating a slice unaccompanied… straight from the fridge… hand to mouth.