Cruel and Unusual Geography

Here’s a spectacular flourless chocolate cake that’s suitable for all sorts of allergies. This is obviously no good for dairy-free or egg-free diets, but almost any other allergy can be accommodated by choosing appropriate chocolate. We tend to use Kinnerton for its nut-free guarantee, but also have enjoyed Trade Aid chocolate in the past.

It’s great to come across a recipe where we have all the ingredients, it’s not too complicated, it’s allergy-friendly, and it is just so decadently rich!

Chocolate Valentino by Chef Wan from his book, Sweet Treats

450 grams of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
140 grams butter
5 eggs, separated

Melt chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Stir until smooth. Cool.
Grease a 22cm springform pan. Beat egg yolks and stir into cooled chocolate.
Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Gently fold a quarter of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture. Fold in remaining egg whites.
Pour batter into a pan and bake for 25 minutes at 190°C or until done. Cool.

Note: The Valentino is a heart-shaped version of this cake. Bake a Valentino in a heart-shaped pan. This is a very dense chocolate cake.

If, like me, you don’t have kitchen scales, 140g is about half-way between a quarter and a third of a 500g block of butter, or just a tad less than the third 50g mark on the packet.

When I wrote about the recent peanut desensitisation trials in the UK I said

This is the first real breakthrough in the search for a cure for food allergies.

I should clarify that.

There is no cure. At the moment there is no sign of a cure. What the British trial demonstrated is that it is possible to raise the threshold of sensitivity — where a child had previously reacted to a very small dose of the allergen, they could now tolerate a lot more before a reaction was triggered. However, the allergy remains. If they eat enough of the stuff they can still have an anaphylactic reaction.

What the desensitisation treatment does is remove the worry of what can happen through accidental exposure, and that’s an excellent thing.