Ingredients
125g castor sugar
125g unsalted butter
220g dark chocolate, broken into small pieces
4 eggs, separated
2 rounded tbsp cornflour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla essence
Method
■ Preheat the oven to 170C. Grease and line a 20cm cake tin, spring-form preferably.
■ Melt the butter, either in a bowl in the microwave or in a bowl over a saucepan of water brought to the boil then removed from the heat. Add sugar and chocolate.
■ When the chocolate is melted but not too hot (below 50C) gently beat the egg yolks, add to the chocolate and butter and mix together well. Add the cornflour, baking powder and vanilla essence. Mix well.
■ In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff. Fold a quarter of the egg whites into the chocolate mix to soften the mixture then, bit by bit, gradually and gently fold through the remaining stiff egg whites.
■ Pour into the cake tin and bake for 20 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 160C and bake 15 minutes more or until a skewer, when inserted into the cake, comes out clean.
■ Remove from the oven, leave to rest for 10 minutes, then turn out of the tin to cool on a wire rack.
** Read Richard Cornish's chocolate cake story here.
