I issued a challenge where you had to use a savoury ingredient in a sweet dish. I have had this recipe for a chocolate fennel cake from the Food and Home Entertaining August 2008 magazine waiting for testing and this was the perfect opportunity. I have decided that gluten free cakes cannot be sugar free as they end up slightly too dense but I am well pleased with the candied fennel. As an aside, I attempted to make the icing with Sugalite, a sugar substitute but it did not work. So, I have made a normal icing, which rendered the fact I had used Willies Cacao and fructose a slight waste of ingredients as the cake needs the icing and I cannot enjoy it.
Chocolate Fennel Cake
Adapted from Food and Home Entertaining August 2008
Ingredients
for the cake:
- 1 small fennel bulb thinly sliced
- 600 g good quality dark chocolate broken into pieces
- 300 g unsalted butter
- 12 large eggs separated
- 100 g caster sugar - I used fructose
for the candied fennel:
- 2 small fennel bulbs sliced
- 200 g caster sugar – I used fructose
- 200 mls water
for the icing:
- 250 g unsalted butter
- 500 g icing sugar
- 1 teaspoon finely ground fennel seeds
Method
for the cake:
- preheat the oven to 180° Celsius
- line the base and the sides of 2 x 20cm springform tins with baking paper
- place the fennel slices on the bases
- place the chocolate and the butter in a bowl
- place the bowl over a pan of gently simmering water – do not allow the water to touch the bowl
- allow to melt thoroughly
- whisk the egg yolks with 30mls of the sugar for 30 seconds
- stir in the melted chocolate and mix well
- beat the egg whites with the remaining sugar until very stiff
- fold one third of the egg whites into the chocolate mix
- gently fold in the remainder of the egg whites
- pour the mixture into the tins
- bake for 20 – 25 minutes
- remove from the oven and allow to cool
- turn onto a wire rack once cooled and place them in the fridge
for the candied fennel:
- place the ingredients into a sauce pan
- bring to the boil
- lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes
- allow to cool
for the icing:
- beat the ingredients together until light a fluffy
to assemble:
- use a hot knife to slice each cake in half
- place a cake layer on your cake plate
- use a third of the icing and top with some candied fennel
- repeat until all the layers are stacked
Notes
as you will see, I did not slice the cake in half as I used a larger springform tin and only baked half the measurements
Click on the links for conversions and notes.
Tandy
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Is the fennel taste strong? Don’t think my crowd will go for this, does it taste of liquorice?
I did not use too much fennel on the base and Dave said it was not that strong. The candied fennel is awesome though 🙂
Wonder if I could be tempted to taste this – fennel is not my favourite.
🙂 Mandy
If you don’t like fennel I would not try it 🙂
This sounds interesting…I love fennel but have never used it in a cake! In bread and foccacia yes..always delicious, so my guess mixed with chocolate would be slightly different. I’ve used candied fennel also on a capaccio of thinly sliced salmon and rose pepper. Delicious! Love this twist to your chocolate cake though! x
thanks for the suggestion Yvette on how I can use the rest of the candied fennel xxx