from the wood-fired oven

A delicious and rich chocolate cake – gluten free and gorgeously moist – from the woodfired oven, cooked in the falling heat. It’s not just high heat and pizzas, as we know! The cake is made with ground almonds rather than flour so it’s gluten free. It keeps really well so is a perfect get ahead cake for the festive season – serve slightly warm with some vanilla ice cream.

We bake in the cleared refractory oven so we are using just the retained heat but if your oven doesn’t hold so much heat, then a few embers to keep the heat up should be fine; you don’t need a fire burning.

Ingredients

140g pitted prunes
4 tbsp apple juice
100g butter
140g dark chocolate
100g caster sugar
50g light muscovado sugar
4 eggs, 2 of them separated
1 tsp vanilla extract
100g ground almonds
15g cocoa plus extra for dusting the cooked cake
150g fresh raspberries for garnish

Method

Soak the prunes in the apple juice, ideally overnight, and then whizz them together to make a thick purée.
The oven needs to be around 200°C and you need a 20cm loose-bottomed cake tin – lined with baking parchment, brushed with a little extra melted butter.
Gently melt the butter and chocolate together in a small pan just at the entrance to your oven. Don’t let it get too hot otherwise the chocolate will become granular and be difficult to work with.
Whisk together 2 eggs, 2 egg yolks, the caster sugar and the muscovado sugar until super thick and creamy. Add the vanilla extract, cocoa and ground almonds.
Whisk the remaining egg whites until they are at the soft peak stage and fold them into the chocolate mixture. Fold this mixture into the rest of the cake ingredients.
Turn the mixture into the tin and put in the oven with the door shut for 20-25 minutes.
Bring the cake out of the oven when the top is firm but there is a slight wobble to the cake underneath. Let the cake cool in the tin before turning on to a serving plate.
Dust the cake with extra cocoa (through a sieve in case of lumps) and decorate with fresh raspberries.
Serve slightly warmed through with ice cream and enjoy.