Chocolate Cake | Call Me by Your Name

When I looked at my dessert plate and saw the chocolate plate speckled with raspberry juice, it seemed to me that someone was pouring more and more red sauce than usual, and that the sauce seemed to be coming from the ceiling above my head until it suddenly hit me that it was steaming from my nose.
Call Me by Your Name
André Aciman

Spring is filling the air recently, the days are getting warmer and I've been setting up picnic blankets in the front yard during the past week - spending hours outside with my work computer and notes, soaking up the warmth. It may just be the stricter restrictions that the city has been living with in the past month, but the urge to move to a tiny cottage with chickens, a vegetable garden and somewhere to pick wild mushrooms has been rising a lot.

As picturesque as the above could be, I would miss the streets of Melbourne immeasurably I am sure. I'm contenting myself with ordering seeds and herbs from stores, planting an array of vegetables in pots and containers that line the kitchen table.

I picked up Call Me by Your Name again recently, someone at work mentioned wanting to read more so we've begun a tiny book club, something to keep him more accountable of having reading goals. The first on his list was Call Me by Your Name - the perfect excuse to do a re-read. There is no better time to read this book than spring I think - the words within the pages make me want to spend a spring and summer in Italy, picking fruit from trees and running barefoot around the grass. I'll have to make do with the flourless chocolate cake and raspberry coulis below, a dense, incredible cake that honestly took so many tries to get right. Most flourless chocolate cake recipes require 4 - 8 eggs, and the vegan versions I found had avocado, silken tofu and other substitutes that just don't sound that appealing. Chickpea flour worked a treat though - keeping the dense texture of the cake, but ensuring that it would not fall apart.

*Note: this recipe needs a strong binder since it's flourless - chickpea flour works quite well. But if you do eat eggs, you can remove the chickpea flour and instead replace it with 4 eggs.

Chocolate Cake and Raspberry Coulis
Ingredients
Cake
200g almond meal
2 tbsp cocoa, sifted
150g caster sugar
100ml milk
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp bi-carb soda
9 tbsp chickpea flour *see note
9 tbsp water
1 tsp vanilla extract
200g butter
180g dark chocolate, chopped
30 ml coffee liquor or coffee
Raspberry Coulis
150g raspberries, if using frozen leave the water out of the recipe
60g caster sugar
30ml water
Juice of one lemon

Cake

1. Preheat your oven to 160C and prepare a springform tin, grease it well and layer with baking paper.

2. Combine the chickpea flour and water together, stir well. It should become quite thick - you don't want it too watery. Put it to the side for now.

3. Combine the butter, dark chocolate, cocoa and coffee or coffee liquor in a sauce pan and heat on a medium heat. Stir as it melts so it all becomes combined into a smooth mixture and add in the vanilla. Put to the side to cool.

4. Mix the apple cider vinegar and milk together and place to the side to let it curdle into buttermilk.

5. Combine the almond meal, bi-carb and sugar together in a large bowl and add in the melted chocolate mixture, the chickpea and water mix, and the buttermilk. Stir well - you don't want lumps of the chickpea mix to remain solid in the batter.

6. Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake for 60 - 70 minutes. Check on it frequently - if you're not using eggs, under baking this cake runs the risk of it collapsing and not holding together properly.

7. Test to see if it's ready by inserting a skewer, if wet batter comes out it's not done. When it has cooked, let it cool completely before removing from the pan.

Coulis

1. Combine all the ingredients into a saucepan and heat over a low heat. Cook for around 10 - 20 minutes or until the raspberries begin to mush together into a sauce and the sugar has dissolved.

2. Once done, cool in the fridge and it will thicken. I like my sauce with the seeds and whatnot in it, but you can strain it out if you want a smooth sauce.

3. Serve with the cake and enjoy!