Day 73: a nigella easter: part 2
Arguably, this post and my previous one on Nigella’s Herbed Leg of Lamb should have gone into a single entry. But, my argument against that is that these two recipes were in fact cooked over two different days - and enjoyed for several thereafter - and therefore deserve their own time in the spotlight. If the lamb was our savoury showstopper then this, undeniably, took the podium as our sweet centrepiece: our chosen dessert for Easter Sunday Dinner this year was Nigella’s Sunken Chocolate Amaretto Cake with Biscotti Cream.
I love amaretti biscuits: they evoke wonderful memories of family Christmases from when I was growing up. After the main course and pudding had been served and eaten, it was time for coffee and chocolates (I can’t recall if that came before or after the cheese!). My Nan always served the coffee in her electric percolator - the old vintage kind that only made about 6 small cups, not the large catering size ones - and that’s when the after-dinner chocolate would come out. An array which often included: After Eights, chocolate-covered brazil nuts, chocolate-covered stem ginger (which now I love - then not so much), chocolate liquors, and individually wrapped amaretti biscuits. The paper wrapping was so thin on these biscuits that it was almost translucent and my grandad, after eating its contents, used to gather to corners of the wrapper together like a bindle and then light them with a match. I would watch in awe as it floated out of his hand speedily and then combusted in an almost instant.
Nigella’s Sunken Chocolate Amaretto Cake with Amaretti Cream
This isn’t the kind of bake that tends to give me first-time nerves: it’s flourless, for a start, and you begin with a much wetter batter than you do with most cakes, which gives me greater confidence in believing that I stand less chance of overbaking it. No, my only fear here was that the cake wouldn’t sink in the middle and form frilly edges around its circumference. Although it sunk nicely in the middle unfortunately the frilly edge didn’t form. I suspect I overbaked it perhaps: that’s normally where I tend to err! I won’t lose too much sleep over it - it tasted incredible - but I just like to know in the never-ending thirst for knowledge why things don’t always turn out how they should.
The biscotti cream was also sensational and for me the perfect accompaniment: I find dark chocolate too strong and bitter, but the cream was exactly what I needed to enjoy a slice (or two) very much indeed!
Flavour musings
A centrepiece is often depicted, or imagined, as a flamboyantly decorated - and often large - cake, dessert or arrangement of flowers, but I use it in this context to express the strength of flavour it packed: it might seem small but it is decadently rich, moist, bittersweet and deeply enjoyable.
I might not have mastered that frilly edge yet but Nigella’s Sunken Chocolate Amaretto Cake made silent mouths and euphoric faces around our Easter table. And, due to low numbers in attendance (obvs), lasted as a deeply decadent coffee-time treat for several days after.
