My mum needs to regulate her sugar intake and as a result, she hasn’t had cake for a long time. I thought it wasn’t fair she couldn’t have cake so I found this recipe (varied a little bit) from Equal’s sweetener recipes. This is a low-sugar (and lowish calorie) torte for her because instead of using sugar, I used granulated sweetener. The torte still tasted as sweet but I could tell the difference between a sugar torte and a sweetener torte – I prefer the former over the latter. It also didn’t taste as rich as its full sugar alternative. Either way, at least mum could eat it and she said she had a hard time not to grab a second slice.
Serves 8
Prep time 30 mins + 10 mins glaze
Cook time 20 mins + 2 hours (chilling) + 1 hour (chilling again)
Ingredients
For the torte:
85g butter (I did not use a light version, but lower calories if you do!)
115g dark chocolate (I used 70% cocoa which had the lowest sugar added)
80ml light milk
85g fruit jam (I used St Dalfour dark cherry as it had low sugar)
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/2 cups sweetener (or sugar – most sweeteners can be replaced at 1:1 volume ratio)
3 egg whites
1/8 tsp baking soda
30g flour
pinch of salt
Chocolate glaze:
30g dark chocolate
15g butter
fruit to garnish (I used red globe grape halves because that was the only fruit in my fridge – well I had an orange … hmmm … maybe I should’ve used the orange)
For the torte:
Preheat the oven to 180C.
Heat up the butter along with the chocolate, milk, and jam in a small saucepan making sure to stir frequently on a low heat. Make sure it doesn’t boil or the butter and chocolate mixture starts to separate and it’s not very smooth. The jam I used had whole cherry bits inside so the mixture had some lumpy bits of fruit which was nice, but not very smooth.
Remove the saucepan from the heat and mix in the yolk and vanilla essence. Add the sweetener last, mixing until it is smooth. Apparently the sweetener has a tendency to separate a mixture containing eggs (and butter/margarine) so it’s recommended to add this last. If you’re feeling indulgent and using real sugar then this obviously isn’t an issue.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites and baking soda until they stiffen into peaks. Then fold this into the chocolate mixture. Then fold in the flour and salt.
Line a round cake tin (8-10 inches, I think I used 9 inches) with baking paper. Pour the batter in and cook in the oven for 20 minutes. Check on it to make sure it does’t overcook or it will become dry along the edges. Having said that, you need to make sure it is cooked in the middle so your tester stick must come out clean when you pierce the middle. The cake won’t rise much and will remain rather dense and flat.
Remove from the oven and cool before chilling in the fridge for 2 hours. If in a hurry, place in the freezer for 30 minutes. This chilling time makes the cake harder and more dense before you glaze it.
Meanwhile, make the glaze by heating up the chocolate and butter in a small saucepan over a low heat. Alternatively, you can microwave it since it’s a rather small portion.
Pour the glaze over the cake and cover it on top. There won’t be a lot of glaze so just make a nice, thin layer of glaze on the top of the cake.
Chill in the fridge for another hour before garnishing with fruit and serving. You may also want to serve with some cream (not included in calorie count).