Holiday Chocolate Cake with Raspberries

This is a recipe from the archives of a previous blog. I hope you enjoy it!

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December on the blog will be full of treats – and plenty of them. Today I’ll offer you an idea for a chocolate cake sandwiched with raspberry jam from a calendar I used to have. And what better way to honour Grandma’s jars of homemade jam!

The ingredients come in a combination that gives the cook confidence even before going anywhere near the hob. Anything containing plenty of butter, chocolate and eggs is destined to be tempting and even perfect!

Ingredients

• 225 g dark chocolate

• 175 g butter

• 1/4 tsp instant coffee

• 100 g almond flour

• 2 heaped tablespoons plain flour

• 1/4 tsp vanilla salt (or regular salt)

• 5 eggs, at room temperature

• 140 g sugar

• raspberry jam

For the ganache:

• 140 g dark chocolate

• 100 ml double cream

• icing sugar, for dusting

• raspberries, for decoration

How to make the cake:

1. Preheat the oven and prepare two cake tins. The original recipe suggests tins with a diameter of 23 cm, but I used 18 cm tins. If you decide to follow my example, you’ll simply need to bake for longer.

2. Melt the butter and chocolate over a very low heat, stirring constantly, or in the microwave. Set the saucepan aside to cool and add the coffee.

3. In a bowl, mix the almond flour, plain flour and vanilla salt.

4. In another bowl, whisk the eggs until they double in volume, then gradually add the sugar and continue whisking for a little longer.

5. Add the chocolate mixture to the egg mixture, folding gently with a silicone spatula. When the colour changes from yellow to brown and chocolatey, add the dry ingredients in two stages. Stir and enjoy the sight – it looks like the filling of Ferrero Rocher chocolates, precisely because of the coarser pieces of almond flour.

6. Divide the mixture evenly between the two tins. The baking time for the wider tins is 15 minutes. Bake for about 25 minutes in the middle of the oven if using the smaller tins. In this case, a skewer inserted into the centre doesn’t need to come out completely dry, as the cakes will continue to cook slightly in their tins even after being removed from the oven. As a guide, watch the surface – when it starts to brown lightly, take them out.

7. Once they have cooled in their tins, remove the sponge layers and leave them to cool completely. When you’re ready to assemble the cake, sandwich the two layers together with raspberry jam – judge the quantity yourself. I used 2 tsp, as I didn’t want the sweetness to be overpowering. You can also mix a few fresh raspberries into the jam.

8. To make the ganache, bring the cream to the boil and pour it over the dark chocolate. Stir until you have a smooth mixture. Leave it to cool slightly, then pour it over the cake. If you wait longer, it will thicken and be more suitable for spreading rather than pouring. Use a spatula to help distribute it evenly.

9. Decorate with raspberries and enjoy with company!