The Ultimate Chocolate Cake Challenge - Chocolate Cherry Cake

Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella is hosting The Ultimate Chocolate Cake Challenge - every chocoholic's dream event! She invites us to write up our best ever chocolate cake recipe and post about it. There are three ballotine boxes of Colefax truffles up for grabs for the best entries.

I am posting this at the last minute, as entries close in around two hours time. However, I couldn't pass up participating in an event close to my heart - that is, one featuring chocolate! I have seen some pretty fabulous chocolate cakes so far, such is the creativity being fostered by this event.

I have baked a Chocolate Cherry Cake from p153 of BBC Australian Good Food's November 2008 edition. This cake may not look spectacular, but the special part about it is that it is a low fat version of an old-fashioned favourite by Teresa Cutter, written especially for the magazine. Low fat and chocolate - methinks it is the cake for me!

Because of the apple and cherries in the cake, it is very moist. It is also very chocolatey, as unlike many low fat cakes, it contains real chocolate. Teresa, the creator of the recipe, cut down on the fat by leaving out butter and oil rather than totally replacing the rich flavour of real chocolate with cocoa. She has succeeded in creating a very chocolatey, moist cake, packed with delicious cherries, that would be a hit at morning or afternoon tea, or served as an after-dinner treat. The fruit content also means that there is less sugar in this cake than in the standard chocolate cake.

If you are trying to cut down on some fat and calories to save them up for your Christmas splurge, but are reluctant to give up your chocolate fix, then look no further than this little beauty, which is relatively simple to make (if you have a cherry pitter!!). The recipe is as follows:

100g chopped dark chocolate
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup boiling water
2 egg yolks
4 eggwhites
2/3 cup plain flour
2 1/2 cups pitted fresh or frozen cherries
1 grated apple (I used Granny Smith)
icing sugar to dust the top of the cake (optional)

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Line the base and sides of a 20cm square baking tin with silicone paper.

In a large bowl, pour the boiling water over the chocolate, sugar and sifted cocoa and stir to combine. Leave the mixture to stand for around 2 minutes to give time for the chocolate to melt, then stir the mixture again until smooth. Beat the egg yolks with a fork in a cup, then whisk them into the chocolate mixture. Sift the flour, then fold it into the chocolate mixture.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with an electric mixer until they form stiff peaks. Carefully fold the eggwhites through the chocolate mixture. Finally, tip the grated apple and cherries into the batter and stir until combined.

Pour the cake batter into the lined cake tin, smooth the top, and place it in the preheated oven to bake for 35 minutes or until cooked through. Remove the cooked cake from the oven and cool it in the tin on a wire rack.

Once cool, turn the cake carefully out of the tin and dust the top with icing sugar before cutting it into squares. Enjoy!

Thanks to Lorraine for hosting this challenge, and I can't wait to see the array of other delicious chocolate cakes.