Chocolate Fudge & Clementine Olive Oil Cake
This chocolate fudge and clementine olive oil cake is extremely rich, decadent and indulgent but absolutely worth every bite and will cure any chocolate craving you have. Trust me when I say that you are going to fall in love with it!
The centre is moist and dense yet not too dense and it has a crackly top, chewy edge and gooey centre with strong notes of citrus. As an added bonus it’s gluten free! You will notice that after baking this cake, it’s a bit more shallow than your regular cake but since it's so rich, thanks to the absence of flour, your portion size will remain the same.
Tips to make this cake the best it can be
1. Use a high quality olive oil. Rich Glen’s Orange Citrus Zest Infused Olive Oil makes this cake extremely special and adds another element of citrus flavour.
2. Use very high quality chocolate and make it dark. I like to use a chocolate that is at least 80% cacao.
3. Make sure your eggs are at a room temperature as this will help them stiffen when beating them.
4. Slow and steady wins the race! When whipping your egg whites, slowly add the sugar tablespoon by tablespoon in one minute intervals as it will help the sugar fully dissolve.
5. Don’t over or underbake! An overbaked cake will come out dry and an underbaked cake will be far too moist and collapse in the centre. Use a wooden skewer to check the middle of the cake and when it comes out almost clean, you are good to go.
6. Use a silicone cake tin that is 23cm / 9 inch. The size of the cake tin is important as it will alter the texture of the cake.
Ingredients
- 4 eggs
- 200g dark chocolate
- 3⁄4 cup Rich Glen Orange Citrus Infused olive oil
- 1 cup sugar
- 1⁄2 cup clementine juice
- 2 tablespoons clementine zest + extra to serve
- 1⁄4 teaspoon flakey sea salt
- Icing sugar to serve
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 180 degree celsius. Lightly oil a silicone 23cm / 9inch cake tin and push a piece of baking paper into the tin so the baking paper is coming out over the edges as they will act as handles when we need to remove the cake from the tin. The cake will have a crinkle look from the baking paper but this is what we are looking for.
- Break the chocolate apart and place into a heatproof bowl over a pot of boiling hot water and whisk until melted. Make sure the bottom of the bowl is not touching the water. Once fully melted, take off the heat and leave to slightly cool.
- Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites. In a large mixing bowl, whisk the egg yolks, half of the sugar, melted chocolate, olive oil and clementine juice and zest until all ingredients are well combined.
- In a stand mixer on the highest speed, mix the egg whites with a pinch of salt until they become stiff. Once the egg whites are stiff, gradually add the remainder of the sugar 1 tablespoon at a time in 1 minute intervals. Whisk until the egg whites are stiff, smooth and glossy. Gently fold the egg white mixture into the cake batter, being sure to be as gentle as possible to not break any air pockets. It’s okay if the batter is marbled and the egg whites are not fully mixed through. Pour the batter into the cake tin and bake for 50 minutes. Leave the cake to rest in the cake tin for 15 minutes before removing it from the tin. Place onto a cooling rack and lightly dust with icing sugar and extra clementine zest.
- Serve with whipped cream or ice cream.
