Incredible Chocolate Cake
A low carb adaptation of an original recipe by Nigel Slater

Serves 12
For carb count, see below

9 oz /250g butter (2.25 sticks)
6 tbsp Splenda
4 large eggs
3 tbsp espresso coffee
9 oz /250g ground almonds (approx 1.08 cups)
2 heaped tsp baking powder
5 oz /150g coarsely ground walnuts (just over half a cup)
9 oz /250g coarsely chopped fine dark chocolate*(approx 1.08 cups)

Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C/Gas 4, and then line a 9”/23 cm spring form cake tin with greaseproof paper and butter lightly.

Beat together the butter and the Splenda, and then add the eggs one at a time. Stir in the coffee, and then mix in the ground almonds and baking powder. Finally, fold in the walnuts and the chocolate – keeping some back for the top of the cake. The mixture should be quite firm.

Put the mixture into the cake tin, and gently smooth the top. Scatter the remaining walnuts and chocolate over the top.

Bake in the oven for 1 hour 20 minutes, or until cake is springy – leave for ½ hour before cutting.



Using Lindt 85% Fine Dark Chocolate, the carb count for the whole cake is 54g, and 4.5g per slice.

Using Sweet ‘n Low Plain Chocolate, or similar sugar-free chocolate of around 1.5g carbs per 100g), the carb count for the whole cake is 35g, and 3g per slice.


* The final carb count will, however, obviously depend on the chocolate you use.



I've posted pics of the cake in the Recipe Gallery

omg that looks incredible indeed! i might try it tonite

thanks for the the recipe!

Do you have any ideas for those of us who cannot have coffee?

Oh Demi, I just LOVE Nigel Slater! I have his 'red book' "real fast food' and it is one of my favourite reads - as much for his warm and hilarious style of writing as for the recipes! I feel like I am reading a dear friends letters when I read his book. Although it has no pics, his vivid descriptions and familiarity with words make imagining them all so easy and enjoyable. Thank you for sharing him with all our low carb friends who may not know him. And I am looking forward to trying the recipe - am going to make it up as a slice to take to a morning tea tomorrow.

Thanks

Alicia

Just made this, it is cooling now. I think the conversions are off though. 9oz by weight to almond flour is way more then a cup measure.

I recommend people go by the weight, I did and the batter appeared to be correct as well as the look of the finished cake.

I plan on spliting and icing this case with some cream cheese icing for a B-day party I am going to. Can't wait!

brobin
PS I added a couple of tablespoons of cocoa into the almond flour as well, I like my chocolate. I also used a mix of liquid splenda and liquid sugar twin for the sweetners.

brobin ~ I used a weights and measures convertor on the web to get the cup amounts, as it is not the way I would normally measure my ingredients, so apologies if the conversions were wrong. I think that next time I make this, I will weigh all the ingredients in grams etc as usual, and then put them in cups (I do have a set) to see what the actual cup measure would be as well.

BTW, I like your idea of putting extra cocoa in


Lush ~ I'm so pleased to come across another Nigel Slater fan - I love him and his wonderful recipes are so easily convertable for low carbing. Have you seen my Lemon Loaf Cake recipe, which is another of Nigel's recipes that I recently converted.

You may also be interested in what I wrote about the chocolate cake in my journal:




BBQman ~ if you can't have the coffee, then just leave it out - you may need to add 3 tbsp of water though to get the right batter consistency or perhaps try using something like DaVinci Chocolate low carb syrup instead. Experiment!




I did find that the cake is quite crumbly, but someone suggested putting in some whey protein as this might help to stop that. I'm going to make another ICC this weekend and will substitute 50g of chocolate whey protein for 50g of the ground almonds. I'll post here on how it turns out

Ah, chocolate whey instead of cocoa... hmmmm.... I like that idea.

I did find mine was a bit over done. Maybe my oven is a bit hot but I only did it for 1 hour 10 minutes. I think is would have been better if I left it in for only an hour. The nuts on top were a bit burnt tasting and the outer crust was a bit hard.

I split it and filled it with cream cheese / ricotta / butter / cream icing (all my favourite things) and the taste was incredible. The chocolate taste was very rich (I like dark chocolate) and the nuts were a fine background flavor.

Other then figuring out the time / temp for my oven, I am very pleased with this recipe.

Two thumbs up!

brobin
(I also used weights, I learned ages ago that if you get a recipe from a Brit, use the scale, which is the proper way to bake )

I'd use water and some coffee extract as substitute in your case

What in the world is coffee extract? Does it have coffee in it?

expresso coffee?? brewed or ground

I'm always confused about this myself when I see it in recipes, but I would say brewed, if pushed.

When I use it, I usually put a couple of teaspoons of instant espresso in a cup and then add 3 tablespoons of boiling water (or however many tbsps are needed for the recipe).

Hope that helps.

i used 2 tbsp regular coffee decaf (cuz didnt have espresso) and 1 tbsp cocoa powder instead. it tasted fine to me (and also to fellow testers my sister, bf etc, they like it). will definitely make it again.

Taking into account everyone's comments here, plus my own observations, here is my revised version of the ICC, and this one has definitely got the vote of approval from my family


Incredible Chocolate Cake (revised)

Serves 12
For carb count, see below

9 oz /250g butter
6 tbsp Splenda
4 large eggs
2 tsp instant espresso coffee powder
1 tsp cocoa powder
3 tbsp boiling water
9 oz /200g ground almonds
4 oz /100g chocolate whey protein
2 heaped tsp baking powder
5 oz /150g coarsely ground walnuts
9 oz /250g coarsely chopped fine dark chocolate

Dissolve the espresso coffee powder and the cocoa powder together in the 3tbsp of boiling water, and then set to one side.

Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C/Gas 4, and then line a 9”/23 cm spring form cake tin with greaseproof paper and butter lightly.

Beat together the butter and the Splenda, and then add the eggs one at a time. Stir in the coffee and cocoa mixture, and then mix in the ground almonds, whey protein and baking powder. Finally, fold in the walnuts and then the chocolate – kept some of the chocolate back for the top of the cake. The mixture should be quite firm.

Put the mixture into the cake tin, and gently smooth the top. Scatter the remaining chocolate over the top.

Bake in the oven for 1 hour, or until cake is cooked – leave for ½ hour before cutting.


Using Lindt 85% Fine Dark Chocolate, the carb count for the whole cake is 60g, and 5g per slice. Using Sweet ‘n Low Plain Chocolate (or equivalent like Ross's low carb chocolate), the carb count for the whole cake is 40g, and 3.5g per slice.

one more question, you mentioned we need ground almonds, does that mean that i have to put the almonds in a food processor and grind until it's the consistency of cornmeal?
and do i add anything to it to provent it from turning to butter?
oh and, should i leave the shells on or take them off?.. thanks alot

Shell the almonds first, then process until finely ground. The almonds will only turn to butter if you over process.

You should be able to buy them ready ground, if that's any help - if you can't find 'ground almonds', then look for 'almond flour', which is exactly the same thing.