The combination of chilli and cocoa makes the chocolate flavour sing. This cake is flour-less. Made with ground almonds it is gluten and dairy free and the extra virgin olive oil instead of butter makes it rich and fragrant. Topped with an icing using our chilli flavoured olive oil made with Sicilian chillies, this cake may be gluten free and dairy free, but its definitely not flavour free.
Prep Time 1 Hour
Serves 2
Cook Time 1 Hour
Difficulty Easy
Ingredients
- 65g / 2oz cocoa -
- 200g / 7oz caster sugar
- 3 eggs
- 150g / 5½oz almond meal (or 125g / 4½oz plain flour)
- ½ tsp baking soda
- pinch of salt
Icing
- 3/4 cup icing sugar
- 3 tbs cocoa powder
- 1/3-1/2 cup of hot water
- 125ml / 4fl oz boiling water
- 2 tsp vanilla essence
- 150ml / 5fl oz Nudo extra virgin olive oil
- 200g / 7oz caster sugar
- 3 eggs
- 150g / 5½oz almond meal (or 125g / 4½oz plain flour)
- ½ tsp baking soda
- pinch of salt
- 3/4 cup icing sugar - Icing
- 3 tbs cocoa powder
- 1/3-1/2 cup of hot water
- 1/3 -1/2 cup Chilli olive oil
Method
- Heat your oven to 170C / 325F / Gas 3. Grease a 23cm / 9in cake tin with oil. If you have one, a springform tin is best and line the base with parchment paper.
- Sift the cocoa powder into a bowl and whisk in the boiling water drop by drop until you have a smooth runny paste. Whisk in the vanilla then set aside.
- In a bowl or standing mixer, beat the sugar, olive oil and eggs until they are thickened, pale and creamy (this should be about 3 minutes or so).
- Continue beating on a slow speed as you slowly add the cocoa mixture. Once that is all mixed in, then slowly add the ground almonds, baking soda, and a pinch of salt.
- Pour into your prepared tin and bake for 30-35 minutes. The cake is ready when the sides are set and the top of the centre still looks a little damp – a skewer should come out mostly clean but with some crumbs.
- Cool for 10 minutes in the tin then ease out. It is a moist cake so be careful and don’t be afraid of under-cooking.
- Leave to cool completely before icing with your chilli olive oil icing, or if you want to eat it hot serve up slices and drizzle the icing over.
- To make the icing, sift the icing sugar and cocoa into a bowl and add the hot water and olive oil to make the consistency you like.