Heavenly flourless chocolate teacakes

In England, teacakes, as the name suggests, are often served with the obligatory afternoon tea. Admittedly, the version presented here has little to do with the “real”, gluten-containing and raisin-rich teacakes. Nevertheless, these delicious cakes are great companions to a “coffee party”. With their chocolaty, juicy consistency, they are also an ideal dessert option. The special thing about our chocolate teacakes is that they are completely flourless. In addition, unlike traditional cream, the ganache is mixed with water in this recipe. Is this supposed to work? And whether!

What you need for the chocolate teacakes:

The easiest way is to make the teacakes in a classic muffin tin. Then you get about 12 of them. If you have several small Bundt cake tins, you can of course bake the teacakes in them too!

For the flourless chocolate teacakes you need the following ingredients :

• 160 g unsalted butter (plus a little more for brushing on the molds)
• 200 g dark chocolate (70% cocoa content, roughly chopped)
• 160g sugar
• 1 teaspoon instant coffee granules (dissolved in a teaspoon of boiling hot water)
• 25ml Amaretto
• 160 g ground almonds (our “flour substitute”)
• 5 large eggs, yolks and whites separated
• 0.75 teaspoon salt

For the water ganache:

• 85 g dark chocolate (here too, 70% cocoa content is best, very roughly chopped)
• 35g sugar
• 35g liquid glucose
• 60ml water
• Half the contents of a vanilla bean
• 35g unsalted butter, room temperature and cut into 2cm cubes

How to prepare the chocolate teacakes:

1. First of all, prepare a water bath. Then add the butter and chocolate to the bowl. Let both ingredients melt in a water bath on low heat and stir the whole thing carefully a few times while you do so.
2. Once the butter and chocolate have combined into a creamy mixture, remove the bowl from the hot water. If necessary, pour the chocolate-butter mixture into a larger bowl or, if you have space, simply use the bowl from the water bath.
3. Now add half the sugar, the coffee, amaretto, the almonds and the egg yolks. Stir the various ingredients thoroughly and then put the bowl aside.
4. Next, using a mixer in another bowl, beat the egg whites with the salt for about a minute, until the consistency is creamy and white in color.
5. Then you can add the remaining sugar and stir for another 3-4 minutes until the mixture has become somewhat solid.
6. Now put about half of the egg white and sugar mixture in the other bowl and carefully fold it into the chocolate dough. Repeat this with the remaining egg whites. Then let the dough rest at room temperature for about an hour.
7. Then remember to preheat the oven in good time to 180 °C top/bottom heat, 160 °C fan oven or gas level 4.
8. Also use the waiting time to grease the molds with melted butter. So that the excess fat can drain off, place the molds upside down on some kitchen paper before filling.
9. When the waiting time is over, distribute the dough evenly among the molds and make sure that they are only three-quarters full.
10. Bake the teacakes on the middle tray in the oven for 20-25 minutes. The stick test tells you whether the cakes are ready.
11. When the cakes are ready, be sure to let them cool completely before removing them from the pans.

Let's continue with the chocolate ganache:

1. Pour the chocolate for the ganache into a medium-sized bowl and set it aside for now.
2. Then heat the sugar and glucose in a small pan over low heat, stirring constantly. When the sugar has dissolved, increase the heat to medium and let the liquid simmer for about 7 minutes.
3. Stir the mixture in the pan every now and then. When the color of the sugar mixture has turned a light brown, remove the pan from the heat, wait a minute and then carefully pour in the water. Don't worry if the mixture thickens a bit!
4. Put the pan back on the stove over medium heat, add the vanilla and stir until the mixture comes to a simmer again.
5. Remove the pan from the heat, wait a minute and then add the liquid to the chocolate in the bowl.
6. Before continuing, the mixture must cool down for another 5 minutes. Then stir it again and then gradually add the butter while continuing to stir.
7. When the ganache has finally reached a creamy, glossy consistency, you can pour it evenly over the teacakes that have been removed from the molds.
8. You should now wait one last time until the water ganache has cooled down. After that, nothing stands in the way of the teacake party!

The recipe published here originally comes from the well-known celebrity chef Yotam Ottolenghi and the dessert expert Helen Goh.

FAQ about the chocolate teacakes

Here we answer a few questions that might be exciting about the recipe.

Can the almonds also be replaced with other nuts?

In any case! There are no limits for the fanatasy :)
If you don't have ground nuts at home, you can also use regular extra. However, you can then skip the resting time for the dough.

Speaking of rest time, is that necessary?

If you bake the flour-free version given here, absolutely. The ground almonds need some time to absorb the liquid in the dough. If you don't give the dough time, the teacakes will unfortunately not be as delicious and juicy as they can be!

Is this also possible in vegan form?

With this recipe we are actually very unsure what the vegan version could look like. The eggs are simply very important for the consistency of the teacakes. But you can easily replace the butter with margarine, which would at least make the cake lactose-free! If any of you have an idea of ​​how the cake could work vegan, please let us know!

Header photo by May Lawrence on Unsplash