Chocolate cake with Fig Centre

This is a based on a Maggie Beer recipe except I used cointreau instead of brandy, so much in fact that the kids didn't like it....huzzah! More for the adults. Apparently Maggie stole it from Simone Beck's Very Rich Chocolate cake with Cherries, needless to say, there was a reason the original was called "very rich"

Method

Pre-heat oven to 190ºC. Grease and line a 26cm cake tin. Melt the chocolate with the cointreau until smooth then remove from heat. mix one egg yolk at a time into the chocolate mixture. Return the pan to the heat just to warm the yolks and thicken the mixture. Remove from the heat again and add the butter, a knob at a time, stirring until it is all incorporated. Sift the flour and stir it into the chocolate mixture.

Beat the egg whites with the salt until they form soft peaks, then add the castor sugar and beat until stiff. Fold the warm chocolate mixture carefully into the eggwhites and turn the batter into the prepared tin. Bake for 20-25mins and remove from the oven (it is important not to over cook the cake). It should puff like a souffle in the centre, leave to cool in the tin to cool for at least 45 mins and then turn out onto a plate. The cake with shrink and crack when it cools.

Cut a 12 cm wide circle in the middle of the cooled cake and scrape out the cake with the spoon leaving the base intact. Mix with the figs and pile it back into the hole.

For the Ganache melt the chocolate with the cream, cool the ganache then cover the cake.

Eat it, love it!!!

• Chocolate Cake
• Cointreau
• Fig Centred Chocolate Cake
• Sweets