Chocolate Fudge Cake with Coffee Syrup

Is it only in the movies that couples go out for candle light dinner and take a midnight stroll by the beach and followed by a night of passion on Valentine’s day? My parents never did anything for Valentine’s day although my mum has a secret desire to go dancing every year. Being in a relationship, one would have thought Valentine’s day will be a “happening” day for couples. From what I have observed from my real life coupled friends (okay, myself included!), we basically just carry on life as usual.  It does  sound like we are on the road of elderly coupledom eh? 😉

For the past years, also my pre-blogging days, I didn’t realise it was Valentine’s day until I was reminded by the unusually apparent displays of roses and heart-shaped balloons on the street. But if you follow food blogs, you don’t need  a calender to remind you an upcoming occasion. For Valentine’s day in this instance, I find it hard to miss all the fabulous and desirable heart-shaped cupcakes, cookies and pops. And for once in many years, I actually caught a little of the Valentine’s day bug.  Forget about setting up  a candle light dinner (my beloved, unfortunately, isn’t into chick flick stuffs), I wanted to at least bake something for the occasion. A very appropriate chocolate fudge cake with coffee syrup.  Even more appropriate if your beloved is a chocoholic! 🙂

Chocolate Fudge Cake with Coffee Syrup

(adapted from The Australian Women’s Weekly – Slim)

Prep time: 15 minutes

Baking time: 50 minutes

Makes 20 cm (8-inched) cake or fill a 12-hole (1/3 cup) muffin pan

Ingredients for cake:

• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 1/2 boiling water
• 85g (3 oz) dark cooking chocolate, finely chopped
• 2 egg yolks
• 4 egg whites
• 1/4 cup almond meal
• 1/3 cup wholemeal plain flour (or just plain flour)

Ingredients for Coffee Syrup:

• 3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 3/4 water
• 1 tbsp instant coffee powder

Method:

• Preheat oven to 170 degree C / 338 degrees F. Grease cake pan with flavourless oil and line with parchment paper.
• Combine almond meal and wholemeal plain flour on plate. Set aside.

• Finely chop dark cooking chocolate. Set aside.

• Sift brown sugar and cocoa powder into a medium sized mixing bowl.

• Add 1/2 cup boiling water into brown sugar – cocoa powder mixture. Stir until smooth.

• Then stir in chopped chocolate. Stir until smooth.

• Stir in egg yolks, almond meal and flour.

• In a separate small mixing bowl, beat egg whites with electic mixer until soft peaks form.

• Fold egg whites into chocolate mixture, in two batches.  Then scrape batter into a cake pan and bakes for 45 minutes or until the cake tester comes out clean. Meanwhile, make coffee syrup.

• Coffee syrup: Stir sugar and water in small saucepan over low heat until sugar dissolves; bring to boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, without stirring, about 15 minutes or until syrup thickens.  Stir in coffee and strain into small heatproof jug / or Pyrex measuring jug. Keep a close eye on the mixture to make sure it doesn’t boil over.
• Stand cake in pan for 5 minutes; drizzle hot cakes with hot coffee syrup.