This is another great cake that I’ve had many times at the River Cafe.

Among the tweaks I’ve made to the recipe over the years, it’s a lot easier to start by whipping up the egg whites and then setting them aside. It’s not really a problem to get a bit of egg white in the sugar-yolk mixture, but you’ll never get your egg yolks whipped up to stiff peaks with even the tiniest bit of fat in the whites.

I only have one bowl and set of attachments for my stand mixer, and I don’t love having to clean everything twice to make a cake. By starting with the egg whites, you can do everything in one simple pass.

While you could always go more indulgent and serve this with some crème anglaise or vanilla ice cream, I think the restaurant’s classic presentation with a dollop of crème fraîche is the way to go.

Ingredients

  • 400 g raw hazelnuts
  • 200 g unsalted butter
  • 10 g instant espresso powder
  • 200 g dark chocolate (ca. 70%), roughly chopped
  • 300 g (about 6) eggs, separated
  • 220 g sugar
  • 2 g salt

Method

Place the hazelnuts on a baking tray in a 190 °C (375 °F) oven, and then let the hazelnuts roast until they’re lightly browned and smell toasty. Using a cloth, rub away the hazelnuts’ brown skins. Transfer the roasted and cleaned hazelnuts to a food processor and grind them into a fine flour.

Combine the butter, espresso powder, and chocolate in a medium heatproof bowl. Place the bowl over a pot of hot water on a low heat to make a bain marie. Gently melt the three components together, stirring the mixture to make a homogeneous mixture.

Once combined, set this mixture aside to cool. Then fold in the hazelnuts.

Preheat an oven to 190 °C (375 °F) with fan (convection) if available.

Grease and line a 26 cm (10") diameter cake tin with parchment paper.

Add the egg whites to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with its whisk attachment. Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks. Set them aside in a second large bowl.

Then add the egg yolks, sugar, and salt to the stand mixer bowl again fitted with its whisk attachment. Whip the yolk-sugar-salt mixture to the ribbon stage.

Pour the chocolate mixture into the whipped yolk-sugar mixture, and fold the two components together by hand with a spatula.

Then gently fold in the egg whites until the mixture is just combined.

Gently pour the finished batter into the prepared cake tin.

Bake the cake until it’s set and beginning to pull away from the sides, about 50 minutes.

Cool the cake completely in the tin. Invert it onto a plate and remove the parchment to serve.