Baking

Nigella's Sunken Chocolate Amaretto Cake recipe

Name: Nigella's Sunken Chocolate Amaretto Cake
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 25 min
Total time: 40 min
Yield: 8
Ingredients: 100g dark chocolate (around 74% cocoa solids); 100g butter (salted or unsalted); 4 eggs; 125g caster sugar; 75g ground almonds; 2 tbsp cocoa powder; 3 tbsp amaretto liqueur; 250ml double cream; 1 tbsp amaretto liqueur; 4 amaretti biscuits, crumbled; 20cm springform cake tin

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Chocolatey, boozy, easy to make and leftovers (if you have any) freeze brilliantly. My all-time favourite cake.

Prep15m
Cook25m
Total40m

cake chocolate gluten-free nigella

Slice of Chocolate Amaretto Cake with ice cream

Nigella's Chocolate Amaretto Cake in an 18cm tin

Update

I recently made this cake with bourbon and it's an excellent substitute for Amaretto. It's quite strong (which I love) so maybe start with two tablespoons and taste the batter before adding a third.

If I had to choose just one cake to make for the rest of my life, this would be it. Of course I love how it tastes: rich, chocolatey and decadent, but speaking as someone who is generally a lazy, unenthusiastic baker, there are many other reasons why this is my favourite cake:

No decorating is required apart from a dusting of cocoa powder.
The sugar content is fairly low (in my opinion) for a cake. I sometimes reduce the sugar from 125g to 90g and after the cake is cut into 12 slices it works out at around 2 teaspoons of sugar per slice. I should say that the slices are small and if I’m making this to feed other people for dessert then I cut it into 8 slices.
The butter doesn’t need to be at room temperature as it’ll be melted.
There’s no need to separate the eggs.
The cake freezes beautifully and defrosts in the microwave in less than a minute.
The cake has booze in it (only a subtle taste). I love booze in food.

The eggs have to be at room temperature but apart from remembering to take them out of the fridge, if that’s where you store them, this is an incredibly easy cake to make.

I’ve listed the Amaretto cream from the original recipe in the ingredients but I’ve only made it a few times. It’s a great accompaniment but we usually eat the cake on its own, or with a scoop of ice cream.

I freeze 6 of the 12 slices after baking and store them in a container with a little space between and some baking paper underneath. I love that I can grab a frozen slice, defrost it to the point where it's warm and squidgy, add ice cream and have an amazing dessert in just a few minutes.

It's not the most spectacular looking cake but its taste far exceeds the effort required to make it. It's been my number one cake since the book, At My Table (affiliate link), came out in 2017. That's not to say I haven't made other good chocolate cakes. Samin Nosrat's Chocolate Midnight Cake is phenomenal but for taste and convenience nothing rivals this trusty Chocolate Amaretto Cake.

Notes

Photo 2 is my attempt at making the cake in an 18cm loose bottomed cake tin. After 35 minutes in the oven the middle hadn't set. 40 minutes was enough but the edges of the cake were a little dry. In future I'll stick with my 20cm tin.

I’ve experimented with different kinds of alcohol. Orange liqueur worked well although 4 tablespoons were needed and some orange zest would have helped. Cherry liqueur wasn’t great; even with 5 tablespoons I couldn’t detect it but it might have been the liqueur (all of them came from M&S).

Recipe credit

At My Table (affiliate link) by Nigella Lawson.

Recipe

Nigella's Sunken Chocolate Amaretto Cake

Prep15m
Cook25m
Total40m

Serves: 8-12

Ingredients

Chocolate Amaretto Cake

100g dark chocolate (around 74% cocoa solids)
100g butter (salted or unsalted)
4 eggs
125g caster sugar
75g ground almonds
2 tbsp cocoa powder
3 tbsp amaretto liqueur

Amaretti Cream

250ml double cream
1 tbsp amaretto liqueur
4 amaretti biscuits, crumbled

You will need

20cm springform cake tin

Method

Preheat your oven to 180°C (160°C fan), line the bottom of a 20cm round springform tin with baking paper and grease the sides with butter or light olive oil.
Add 100g of dark chocolate and 100g of butter to a heatproof bowl and either melt in a microwave on the defrost setting or place the bowl over a pan of boiling water, making sure that the bowl doesn’t touch the water. Once melted, put to one side and leave to cool a little.
Add 125g of caster sugar to a large mixing bowl and crack in 4 eggs. If you have a freestanding mixer, mix for 2-3 minutes until you have a pale yellow, moussy mixture. I use a hand mixer and this takes around 5 minutes.
Combine 75g of ground almonds in a bowl with 2 tablespoons of sifted cocoa powder then turn the mixer down to low and slowly add the almonds and cocoa into the egg mixture, a tablespoon at a time.
Stir 3 tablespoons of Amaretto liqueur into the melted chocolate and butter, then with the mixer still on low, slowly pour the melted chocolate into the cake batter until all the ingredients have fully combined.
Use a silicone spoon or spatula to scrape the batter into the prepared cake tin and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes. The cake is ready when it begins to come away from the edges of the tin and a cake tester comes out with just a few crumbs sticking to it.
Keep the cake in its tin and transfer it to a cooling rack, draping a clean tea towel over it. Nigella’s recipe says, “As it cools, the top of the cake will crack a little more, and it will sink slightly, leaving a frilly edge”. I find that the cake sinks and cracks a lot but almost never gets a frilly edge.
Once the cake has cooled, unclip the tin and if possible, leave it on its base as it’s quite fragile. Dust a generous teaspoon of cocoa powder over the top of the cake, using a sieve.
Just before serving, whip 250ml of double cream with 1 tablespoon of Amaretto until thickened but still soft, then fold in the majority of 4 crumbled Amaretti biscuits before transferring the cream to a serving bowl and sprinkling the remaining Amaretti biscuits on top.