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Chocolate cloud cake

Nigella Lawson from Nigella Bites
Richly dark chocolate cake contrasts a lightly whipped cream topping in this decadent creation, made by Nigella Lawson

Chocolate cloud cake

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas 4.

2. Line the bottom of a 23cm Springform cake tin with baking parchment.

3. Melt the chocolate either in a double boiler or a microwave, and then let the butter melt in the warm chocolate.

4. Beat the 2 whole eggs and 4 egg yolks with 75g caster sugar, then gently add the chocolate mixture, the Cointreau and orange zest.

5. In another bowl, whisk the 4 egg whites until foamy, then gradually add the 100g of sugar and whisk until the whites are holding their shape but not too stiff.

6. Lighten the chocolate mixture with a dollop of egg whites, and then fold in the rest of the whites.

7. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for about 35-40 minutes or until the cake is risen and cracked and the centre is no longer wobbly. Cool the cake in it's tin on a wire rack; the middle will sink as it cools.

8. When you are ready to eat, place the still tin-bound cake on a cake stand or plate for serving and carefully remove the cake from its tin. Don't worry about cracks or rough edges: it's the crater look we're going for here.

9. Whip the cream until soft and then add the vanilla and Cointreau and continue whisking until the cream is firm but not stiff.

10. Fill the crater of the cake with the whipped cream, easing it out gently towards the edges of the cake, and dust the top lightly with cocoa powder pushed through a tea-strainer.

Cooks note: On days when I want the warmth of the hearth rather than the hurly burly of the city streets I stay in and read cookery books, and this recipe comes from just the sort of book that gives most succour, Classic Home Desserts by Richard Sax. The cake itself (which was the pudding I made for last New Year's Eve dinner) is as richly, rewardingly sustaining: a melting, dark flourless chocolate base, the sort that sinks damply on cooling; the fallen centre is then cloudily filled with softly whipped cream, and sprinkled with cocoa powder. As Richard Sax says 'intensity, then relief, in each bite'.

You can make this into an Easter Nest Cake by folding 200g melted chocolate into the cream topping and dotting with the sugar-coated eggs instead of the cocoa. Leave the Cointreau out of both the cake and the cream.

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Serves: 8-12

Prep: 20 min
Cook: 40 min

Ingredients
250g dark chocolate, minimum 70% cocoa solids
125g unsalted Butter, softened
6 Eggs, :2 whole, 4 separated
175g caster sugar
2 tbsp Cointreau, (optional)
1 orange, grated zest only (optional)