Baking Review - Double Chocolate Fudge Cakes

Hello, I've been baking again - and with my new shiny electric mixer which is very cool (although ssshh it's a Christmas present!), I had to try it out to make sure it worked though of course.

The recipe for these double chocolate fudge cakes was taken from the Sainsburys Magazine October 2010.

Makes 12 (mins made 10 but I had a 6cm cutter)
This knockout gluten free caking recipe is quick to make but looks so impressive.
Prep: 20 mins (took me a little longer as took forever to whisk the egg whites and cream of tartar into soft peaks, by hand that is). Total time: 1 hour 40 including cooling.

Ingredients:
200g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), broken into pieces
100g unsalted butter, cubed
4 medium eggs
50g arrowroot or cornflour, sifted (I used cornflour)
175g icing sugar
25ml rum or milk (I used milk)
100g ground almonds (I omitted this)
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
For the icing:
100g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), melted
50g creme fraiche
75g icing sugar, sifted
sugared violets or other decorations

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180oC, fan 160oC, gas 4 and line a 4cm deep, 20x30cm baking tray with nonstick baking paper. (My baking tray was 24x36 I think - bigger than they say anyway)
2. Melt the chocolate and butter in a large bowl over a pan of simmering water; cool. Beat in two whol eggs and two yolks (save the whiles), then the arrowroot or cornflour, sicing sugar, rum or milk and almonds until smooth.
3. Whisk the two egg whites and cream of tartar to soft peaks (took forever by hand). Fold into the chocolate mixture with a metal spoon until barely combined.
4. Spoon this into the baking tray, smooth the top and bake for 15 minutes until barely set. Leave to cool in the tray.
5. Tun the cold cake out on to a board and use a 5cm cutter to stamp out 24 discs. Beat the melted chocolate with the creme fraiche and icing sugar until smooth (it will split slightly). Beat in a few teaspoons of boiling water (which I just realised I forgot to do!) until the consistency turns satin-like and creamy. Working quickly, spoon a little onto each disc. Stack them two high and decorate with sugared flowers or similar.

383 cals; 22g fat (11g sat fat); 42g carbs; 38g total sugars; 0.0g salt

As I just mentioned above, I completely forgot about adding the boiling water, though the icing didn't turn out badly at all. It would appear from reading between the lines (working quickly...) that even with the boiling water added, the icing starts to harden quite quickly, so you do need to be quick with adding it, don't make it while the cake is cooling and ad it later, I think you'd find you couldn't.

I found that the mixture itself only made about 15 circles, with a 6cm cutter, however, I came up with the ingenious idea of squishing the remaining mixture together and managed to make about 5 more, slightly deranged, slightly crumbling circles. I found that putting then on the top was the best plan as it was nicely restnig on top of a stronger circle and not left to hold everything up.

I haven't actually tried a cake yet so I can't really repor on the taste, though I have tried a bit of cut off cake and it tasted very nice - but may be a bit rich for some people as it's quite a lot of dark chocolate in it overall. My dad liked the cake though. But anyway, try for yourselves and see...