Baba’s Recipes

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Chocolate Meringue Truffle Cake

Source: “Feast” - Nigella Lawson

Ingredients

Method

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line an 8-inch springform pan with parchment paper and oil the sides with some flavorless oil.

Whisk the egg white until foamy peaks form and then whisk in the sugar a little at a time to make a thick, glossy mixture. Sieve over the cocoa and sprinkle with the vinegar, and whisk again to combine everything. Spread as evenly as you can over the bottom of the prepared cake pan and then put in the oven to bake for 15-20 minutes. Leave to cool while you make the truffle filling.

Melt the chocolate with the rum and syrup in a bowl over a pan of barely simmering water. Remove the bowl from the saucepan and let it sit off the heat for 5 minutes or so.

Whisk the cream until it thickens slightly - it should be slightly aerated and have the consistency of thick pouring custard, no thicker. Pour into the chocolate mixture, beating gently until everything is amalgamated.

Pour into the meringue-bottomed pan and cover the springform with plastic wrap, and put in the fridge for a night or day, or for up to two days.

A short time before you are ready to serve the cake, take it out of the fridge and let it lose its chill. It will be easier to spring open if the chocolate truffle filling has become less fridge cold, although you don’t want soft room temperature chocolate.

Remove the sides of the pan and transfer the cake to a plate without removing the base unless you think you can with ease (and have one of those big round spatulas). Smooth the sides with a spatula if you want a smarter look, and push the cocoa through a sieve to dust the top of the cake.

Notes

If you can get hold of almond oil, its delicacy and non-intrusive sweetness would work well for oiling the spring-form pan. Also, if you don’t want to bother with the meringue fandango, you could crumble some bought meringue in a bowl, sprinkle with cocoa, mix well and then press this into the base of the cake tin (much as you do with graham cracker crumbs, when making a cheesecake). Pour the chocolate truffle mixture on top and refrigerate.