Day 68: rapturous joy
For me, this cake has become as iconic of Eastertime as an Easter bonnet is. I have never made it, neither do I wear an Easter bonnet, but its picture from Feast is always a welcomed sight around this time of year. Every time I buy mini eggs, which is quite frequently in the months of March and April, I also think about this cake. I am therefore somewhat dumbfounded that I have never actually made it before. Although I did, of course, make the mini chocolate nests when I was younger: you know, the ones where you melt chocolate, apply to a bowl of cornflakes or crushed shredded wheat and then form into nests in little cupcake cases before finishing with a mini egg or three. Nevertheless, this cake may have been a stranger to my stomach for all of these yeara but it has been in my life for a long time, not least as a prominent figment of my imagination. Though I am very happy that it existed there, rather than not at all, it was now time to give that figment corporeal form and make it a reality.
We might not be having the usual houseful this Easter but Nigella’s Easter Egg Nest Cake will certainly do the two of us just fine for a few days. It says it serves eight, so I calculate that as a portion each per day for four days - depending on portion size, obviously: although I do know, deep down, that it will probably last a maximum of three days.
Nigella’s Easter Egg Nest Cake
A flourless cake - that’s a first for me. Does that mean fewer calories? And by flourless here I mean no dry ingredients, other than sugar (I’ve made many flourless cakes with ground almonds). For the record, I class chocolate as a wet ingredient in this recipe as it’s in liquid form. Whether this is the appropriate categorising or not, I do not know.
When a recipe calls for melting chocolate, nine times out of ten I will over-melt it to the point it splits. It’s such a simple task, I know, but if your attention span is about the length of a matchstick like mine, then it’s very easy to get distracted and forget to keep stirring or take it off in time. So, to be sure to minimise that risk this time, I melted the chocolate and butter gradually in the microwave in short intervals instead of over a saucepan of boiling water.
Everything else was pretty straight forward, to be honest, and without any shadow of a doubt - serenely arranging the mini eggs one-by-one atop the chocolatey cream was about the most calming thing I’ve done all day: a huge contrast to my usual frantic rush to finish any form of cake decorating.
Flavour musings
Laden with dark chocolate, baked without flour, anointed with a chocolatey cream - that quite frankly I’d happily serve as a little pudding pot on its own - and then decorated delicately with the pastel hues of sugar-coated chocolate mini eggs: Nigella’s Easter Egg Nest Cake is a showpiece you can take to the table with a smile of rapturous joy stretched wide across your face. A true Easter treat (albeit an early one this house).
I appreciate that this might not be an appropriate indulgence if you’re following lent, but I am personally very happy that Nigella’s Easter Egg Nest Cake is no longer just a figment of my imagination.
