I’m going to put a stake in the ground here, and say that this might just be my new favourite ‘Christmas’ cake.
It’s a departure from tradition. There’s no dried fruit. No brandy. No candied peel. Heck, there’s not even any flour! But to me, this cake is everything that we could ever want a cake to provide us with at Christmas time. It’s dark, rich, and indulgent. It feels like a ‘special occasion’ bake, thanks to it requiring four odd bars of dark chocolate and eight eggs to put together. The fresh mint and rich chocolate flavours are about as festive as you can get, especially when paired with an airy dollop of sweetened, freshly-whipped double cream. And even more especially when that cream too has been spiked with peppermint essence, to bring out the minty notes in the cake. It’s Christmas cake, reinvented!
The recipe (which I’ve adapted ever so slightly with the addition of mint), comes courtesy of Karina Allrich’s new book ‘Gluten-Free Goddess’. I was sent the book last week to review, and even as a die-hard recipe book junkie (it’s a good job Jason built our kitchen shelving units to be extra strong, or else they’d be groaning under the weight of my cookery book library) this one was especially intriguing to me. See, Karina’s recipe book is entirely self-published! I’d not come across the idea of self-publishing before now, and it’s such a fascinating one.
‘Gluten-Free Goddess’ was published via Blurb, a company that enables anyone and everyone to create and market their own book. It’s the marketing side that I think is especially unique and exciting- Blurb have a system that enables authors to distribute their books via Amazon, as well as sell directly through their own online ‘storefront’. One of the things I think is most empowering and liberating about the digital age we’re living in is the freedom of expression we now have. We can write updates, statutes, tweets, blogs, and now even books, and share them with the world right from the comfy spot on our living room sofa. I’ve spent a good while sussing out Blurb’s site, and they seem to make publishing so very accessible and user-friendly. I even spied a book for sale on the site that was written and collated by a 13 year old! She’d written in her bio that all proceeds from sales would be put towards developing and furthering her writing skills, and the publishing of future books. And if you ask me, if a service that enables young people, and really, people of any age, to pursue their passions and take charge of their creative endeavours in such a real and exciting way isn’t worth celebrating, I don’t know what is!
‘Gluten-Free Goddess’ has some gorgeous looking recipes inside it, the vast majority with clear photographs to go alongside them (always a major plus point for me, when it comes to recipe books). Being self-published, of course, it’s not as sleek and elegantly branded as the recipe books we see on the shelves of Waterstones and the like, but there’s something quite charming about its rustic and ‘from the heart’ feel. My most treasured recipes are the ones given to me by loved ones- the recipes narrated to me by friends over the phone that’re scribbled hastily in the back of my recipe binder, or the little cut-up cereal box scraps I keep tucked in a folder that my Grandma wrote down all her favourite recipes on. Gluten-Free Goddess, with all its friendly warmth and imperfect charm, has that same sort of ‘from one friend to another’, ‘from my kitchen to yours’ feeling to it. Hats off to Karina for this recipe, and the awesomeness of publishing her own recipe book. It’s a beautiful one!
Flourless chocolate cake {recipe by Karina Allrich, adapted minimally by me}.
Ingredients ::
16.oz 70% cocoa dark chocolate
1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup soft light brown sugar
1/2 caster sugar
3/4 cup hot strong coffee
2 tbsp cocoa powder
8 large free range eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1tsp peppermint extract
- Line the base of a 10″ round springform cake pan with foil, and grease the edges with a little softened butter. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.
- Break the chocolate up into a large bowl, and set it over a pan to melt. Meanwhile, cream together the butter and sugar in a mixer until soft and light, and then mix in the cocoa powder.
- Slowly pour the melted chocolate into the butter and sugar mixture, beating as you go. With the beaters still running carefully pour in the hot coffee, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl if necessary.
- Beat the 8 eggs together with the vanilla extract, and again, slowly pour into the chocolate mixture with the beaters running. Lastly, add in the peppermint extract and mix to combine.
- Empty the mixture into the greased and lined cake pan, then bake for 45-55 minutes, until the top is cracked and a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake come out clean, or with just a few moist crumbs clinging to it. Leave the cake to cool completely before cutting- it will sink and deflate as it cools, and become even more beautifully cracked and rugged.
- Dust with icing sugar, and serve with a little freshly whipped, sweetened, and mint-spiked whipped cream, plus a few berries to go alongside.
** This post was sponsored by Blurb, who asked me to review one of their self-published books and share my honest thoughts here on Cider with Rosie. My opinions, as always, are my own.