Recipe Aubergine Chocolate Cake

[MypinchofItaly]

Serves: 6 (fills a Ø24 cm cake mould)| Preparation time: 20 mins | Cooking time: 1 h

• Aubergines: 1 kg
• 70% Dark chocolate: 200 g
• Brown sugar: 100 g
• Almond flakes or walnuts: 180 g
• Candied or fresh orange: 80 g
• Milk: 100 ml
• Cocoa powder, unsweetened: a teaspoon
• Cinnamon powder: to taste
• Lemon zest, grated: 1
• Salt: a pinch
• Peanut oil (for deep-frying), 1 lt

Method

Peel and cut aubergines into slices half a centimeter thick. Layer the aubergine slices in a colander, sprinkling them with salt. Leave them aside for ten minutes: the salt will help them dry up and the excess water will drip away.

Heat up peanut oil in a large frying pan. Rinse the aubergine slices to get rid of the salt, dry them thoroughly with a kitchen cloth, then fry them on both sides. Take off aubergines from the oil and place them on a plate lined with kitchen paper. Whilst the aubergine slices are still lukewarm, coat them in a mixture of cocoa and cinnamon powder. Set them aside.

Prepare the chocolate cream: heat up the milk in a saucepan, add sugar and the grated dark chocolate. Stirring the mixture until it becomes uniform in texture. If it is a bit too liquid, you can just add some corn flour, if too thick, some more milk. Once the cream has reached a medium thick consistency, switch off the stove and leave it to cool.

Pre-heat the oven to 150 C.

Cover a baking dish or a springform with baking paper. Spread some chocolate cream on the bottom of the baking paper, then build a layer of aubergine slices and cover it with another layer of chocolate. Sprinkle some almond flakes or chopped walnuts, candied orange and lemon zest. Go forward in this fashion alternating fried aubergine slices and chocolate cream until you finish your ingredients. Top the cake with a generous spread of chocolate cream and garnish it with more almond flakes and lemon grated peel.

Bake the aubergine chocolate cake for 10 minutes to 150 C.

Serve.

 

[Timenspace]

Very interesting combination of tastes...well done. Is this a flourless cake?
How would you describe the taste? Is it a bit similar to baked plum? Or that if dry and resoaked plum?

 

[MypinchofItaly]

Very interesting combination of tastes...well done. Is this a flourless cake?
How would you describe the taste? Is it a bit similar to baked plum? Or that if dry and resoaked plum?

Thank you
Yep it’s completely flourless and no-yeast cake, so something quite easier to manage somehow. The concept is basically like a sort of sweet parmigiana or lasagna.
I might say that the taste is sweet but not too much, and the aubergine gives a very slightly piquant aftertaste. The texture is pretty soft but not soggy.
I hope my description makes sense

 

[Timenspace]

pretty soft but not soggy.
I hope my description makes sense

Oh yes, lovely, it does.