Dark Chocolate Almond Cake

Jhuls @ The Not So Creative Cook

10 years ago

Over the weekend, I finally got my ‘me’ time. Well, not exactly as I have not read even a single page of the book I wanted to read. Honestly, I didn’t know what to read first as I have so many on the list. The ‘me’ time included staying in the kitchen for almost six hours including the almost one hour I spend in taking photos. Gosh! It was really tiring. What did I do in the kitchen for almost six hours, you ask? I did two baking and one cooking, which I am bringing one of them for today’s FF. But I will talk about it later.

I did prepare all the ingredients I need, washed and cleaned up after that. I think I really missed staying for hours in the kitchen so even I was feeling tired, I still cooked one meal after I ate my lunch and took a bath. The baking and cooking alone were so much fun. Preparing the ingredients including the slicing of the veggies? Not too much fun! And the cleaning up? Ahh! I wanna give up. If I could throw everything I used in a plastic bag and dumped them on a garbage can, I would. But hey! I wouldn’t do that. Of course, I won’t. That’s not a good idea. AT ALL. The ‘photo shoot’ took a long time, too. Because I was so tired by the time I took the photos, I didn’t have that much of patience to deal with the ‘reflector’ (which is actually a car sun-shade) falling on the floor repeatedly, and I didn’t have somebody to assist me.

After taking photos and cleaning up my mess, that’s when I felt that my body (especially my hips and legs) was so painful. It’s like I’ve been in the gym for hours. I went to the bed to rest, finally. But after a couple of hours, I was up again and mopped the floor. Ugh! Can’t really sit for too long, huh?

Overall, my weekend was great! I wonder what will happen this weekend. 😀 I hope I will have time to read a book.

So let’s get down to business!

I think I will be opening another short discussion for today’s FF as I had a little problem when I made this delicious cake.

Dark Chocolate Almond Cake

Servings: 8-10
Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients:

For the cake:

125 g dark chocolate
7 tbsp unsalted butter
3 egg yolks
3 egg whites
½ cup + 3 tbsp powdered sugar, divided
1 tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp salt
1 cup finely ground almond/almond flour
¼ cup all-purpose flour
½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda
¼ cup ground almonds, for topping

For the chocolate glaze:

100 g dark chocolate, chopped
2 tbsp butter

Instructions:

For the cake:

Preheat your oven to 375 F. Line a 9×5 loaf pan with parchment paper. Spray with cooking spray.
In a heatproof bowl, place chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl. Microwave for a minute or so or until smooth on low-medium heat, stirring at 15 seconds interval. Set aside.
In a large bowl, combine egg yolks, 1/2 cup of the powdered sugar, vanilla extract and salt. Beat until pale and thick.
Add melted chocolate and ground almonds.
Sift flour, baking powder and baking soda to the previous mixture.Mix well.
In another bowl, add egg whites and beat until soft peaks. Gradually add remaining 3 tbsp powdered sugar and beat until stiff peaks.
Gently fold the egg whites mixture into the flour-chocolate mixture in 3 portions. Mix until no streaks of meringue remain.
Pour the batter into your prepared loaf pan.
Bake for about 25-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
Remove from the oven and let rest in the pan for 5 minutes and transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely before frosting.

For the chocolate glaze:

In a small saucepan over low heat, combine chocolate and butter. Stir until smooth and melted.
Pour this delicious glaze over completely cooled cake.
Top with ground almonds.

Source recipe: Dark Chocolate Almond Cake by Scientifically Sweet

The only problem I had was the bottom and the sides were almost burnt. I am having the same problem every time I deal with whipped egg whites folded into the batter. Any idea how to avoid this?

In any case, burnt or not, I enjoyed every bite.