We live near a lovely park, where every year I’m involved in organising and helping with a fun afternoon. I thought I could bake four cakes to be sold on the home baking stall this year – baking the evening before and the morning of the event. This turned out to be more difficult than I imagined – for some reason baking two different cakes at the same time is MUCH more difficult than it should be. I’d like to blame the fact that I don’t have baking tins of the same size (and all my recipes pretty much use the same tin) but I think I’m just not good at doing two recipes at once….
Three of the four cakes turned out OK – but at least Mr McGregor is happy as he has the strawberry cake to himself (it tastes fine but doesn’t look quite as pretty as it should).
If I’d had more time I would have made this chocolate and lime cake to take, but never mind. Depending on how limey you want it, you could play about with the amount of lime, but I think one is just fine. It’s based on this recipe from Nigella Lawson, but with less sugar, obviously….
Chocolate and lime cake (gluten free) pdf here: Chocolate and lime cake – gluten free
150 grams dark chocolate
150 grams soft unsalted butter
4 large eggs
60 grams caster sugar
120 grams ground almonds
4 heaped teaspoons cocoa powder (sifted)
zest and juice of 1 lime
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4/350°F, grease and line the base of a 23cm / 9inch springform cake tin with baking parchment.
- Melt the chocolate and butter together in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water.
- Beat the eggs and sugar together until frothy and increased in volume. I do this using a freestanding mixer – it takes about 4-5 mins sometimes! A hand-held electric mixer would be OK
- Mix the ground almonds with the cocoa powder and fold this into the egg and sugar mixture, followed by the slightly cooled chocolate and butter. Finally, fold in the zest and juice of the lime.
- Pour and scrape into the cake tin and bake in the preheated oven for 35-45 minutes; the cake will be just firm on top.
- Remove from the oven and sit the cake in its tin on a wire rack to cool. Once the first heat has left it, drape a clean tea towel over the cake to stop it getting too crusty on top – although it will be a little cracked on the surface
sweet enough bakes 