Nigella's Chocolate Olive Oil Cake - Gluten free!

I am in the process of testing out some new baking recipes in preparation for my birthday in November. As is a tradition across the country I have to provide cake on my birthday. This year I will not be beaten by others and will bake my own rather than resort to the supermarket!

One of our Senior Management team at work is gluten intolerant and I always feel a little sorry for her when all the lovely treats come out and she can’t have any due to the dreaded flour! I managed to catch Nigella Lawson’s Nigellissima on Monday night and she had a Chocolate Olive Oil Cake made with ground almonds rather than flour – perfect for gluten intolerant folk. So I gave it a practise run this weekend.

The result was actually really nice. It is a heavier, denser cake than you can expect if you use flour instead of ground almonds but it’s worth a go. I will be making it again. I served it warm with a little cream – marvellous!

Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Olive Oil Cake

Serves 10

Ingredients

150ml regular or light olive oil

50g cocoa powder – sifted

125ml boiling water

2tsp vanilla extract

150g ground almonds

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

Pinch of salt

200g caster sugar

3 eggs

Method

1. Preheat oven to 170/325/gas3. Grease and line a 23cm spring form tin.
2. Sift cocoa into a bowl or jug and whisk in water until it forms a slightly runny paste. Whisk in anile and set aside to cool a little.
3. In another bowl combine almonds, bicarbonate of soda and the salt.
4. Put the sugar, oil and eggs into the bowl of a freestanding mixer ad beat for a few minutes. Or if you don’t have one like me in a large bowl and use an electric whisk. It should take about 4 minutes to become pale and thickened.
5. Turn speed down a little and add cocoa mixture. Tip in the almond mixture. Beat.
6. Pour mixture into the tin (it will seem runnier than a normal cake mix) Bake for 40 -45 minutes - it should look like the sides are set, but the middle is slightly damp. If you use a tester it will come out mainly clean with a few crumbs on it.
7. Cool for 10mins in the tin then remove.
8. Serve warm or cool completely.