Low carb recipe: Coffee and Walnut Cake

Ingredients:-

• 50g ground almonds
• 50g coconut flour (from Holland and Barrett)
• 1 egg - separated into yolk and white
• ¼tsp salt (use table salt, not flakes in this one)
• 2 tsp instant coffee, made up with 15ml hot water
• ½tsp ground cinnamon
• 5g Stevia/Truvia (granulated)
• 25g hazelnut butter (almond or peanut butter will do if that's all you have)
• 25g cacao butter (this came from Vivapure, but coconut oil can be substituted)
• 30g unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Green & Blacks)
• 300g full-fat cream cheese (watch the carb count, some of the cheeses are high)
• 300ml double cream
• 4tsp (2g) Splenda
• ½tsp vanilla extract
• ¼tsp xanthan gum (if the cream mix is too loose, add a little more)
• 5-10g grated very dark chocolate (I used Green & Blacks 70% with madagascan vanilla)

1. Preheat your oven to 135C and make up the coffee. Set the coffee aside to cool.
2. Combine ground almonds, coconut flour, salt, cinnamon and stevia in a dry mixing bowl.

3. Melt the cacao butter gently (if you're using coconut oil make sure you don't get it too hot otherwise you'll prematurely cook the egg white in a minute) stir with the nut butter and add to the dry ingredients in the bowl.  Mix thoroughly.

Plastic pot in a bowl of hot water to melt the cacao butter

 
4. Add the egg white to the bowl and make sure it's mixed in well.

 
5. Spread this mix over the base of a lightly greased/oiled flan or shallow cake tin and press down with the back of a metal spoon until firm.

6. Bake in the pre-heated oven for roughly 40 minutes, but start checking at 30 minutes.  Do not overcook the biscuit base, otherwise it will taste bitter.  When the mix is the same even slightly darker colour, across the entire base remove from the oven and set aside to cool completely somewhere dry.

This was over-cooked and slightly bitter.

While the base is cooling...

8. Whip the cream until stiff.

9. In another bowl, combine the cocoa powder, Splenda and xanthan gum.

10. Mix the cream cheese with the dry ingredients above. This will get very very heavy and stiff, so don't be put off at this stage, keep mixing until well blended.

11. Then add the egg yolk, cooled coffee mixture and vanilla extract and smooth to a creamy, silky mixture.  This will look like it's gone wrong early on.  It will look lumpy and oily but persevere, continue to smooth with a wooden spoon and it will turn a lighter colour and resemble gently melted chocolate.  When that happens, you're done with this step.

 
12. Fold the whipped cream into this mixture, gently stir in the broken walnuts and set aside in the fridge to keep cool.

13. Once everything is cooled and ready, spread the chilled cream cheese mixture on top of your biscuity base and smooth to a level top.

14. Sprinkle the grated chocolate evenly across the top.

15. Put the whole ensemble into the fridge until 15 minutes before you want to serve it.

I think this recipe would benefit from a little more coffee in the cheese/cream mix and perhaps chopping the walnuts smaller.  The over-cooked base this time made the whole thing a bit too bitter, though I was very pleased with the consistency of the base - really crispy and crunchy.

Needs another test run.  If anyone tries this recipe, let me know how it turns out and if you modified it in any way.