Flat Chocolate Cake with Ginger, Coffee, and Crushed Almonds

Needless to say, I love ginger.

Photo credits: Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/fotoosvanrobin/3826326646/sizes/m/in/photostream

Its tangy, sharp taste leaves a distinguishing aftertaste to the palate. Ginger is versatile: it's a spice, but it has also found its way in medicine. 
Used in Asian and Indian cuisines, this little camel root is a staple of my diet and, because it keeps well, I always have it handy in my kitchen. 
The sheer combination of chocolate and ginger will give this cake an exotic taste of far-away places that will only make you buy a ticket anywhere where there is sunshine.

You will need:

3 eggs

2 spoons of brown sugar

1 spoon of honey

3 spoons of wholemeal flour

1 packet of baking powder

1 spoon of freshly ground coffee

1 tea spoon of vanilla essence

2 spoons of ginger powder or freshly grated ginger

4 spoons of hot cocoa (I used  Hot Chocolate from Whittard of Chelsea)

a handful of crushed almonds or almond flakes (use it sparingly, they add up calories)

2 spoons of light oil (for moisture; I used Italian grapeseed oil)

Method 

In a deep, large bowl, beat the eggs till they grow and become smooth.

Add the vanilla, sugar, honey, ginger, coffee and chocolate powder.

Add the oil and beat again to incorporate all the ingredients.

Add the flour and the baking powder and mix gently.

In the meantime, preheat the oven to 180 C, butter and flour the pan.

Pour the dough into the tin you have prepared, sprinkle the crushed almonds, and put it in the oven for 45 minutes. Once the cake is in the oven lower the temperature to 120 C.

When it's baked, you can make a ristretto or a short espresso, sweeten it with honey, and pour it all over.  That will give extra moisture to the cake.

As I have guests tonight, I am going to make a simple custard to go with it.

This is a very easy cake to make; you fill finish it within the hour and people will eat it in seconds.

Tip:  If you don't have ginger, you can also bake the same cake, but instead of ginger, make it with mint.

You can read more about ginger, here are some useful sites I googled out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginger


http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=72


http://www.food.com/library/ginger-166

If you don't have Hot Chocolate with ginger, you can order it online:


http://www.whittard.co.uk/store/catalogue/Hot-Chocolate-P5000/Ginger-Hot-Chocolate-214221.raa

In Bucharest I can find it easily in Nature shops, in the Whittard of Chelsea shop, or in a bio supermarket called KiLife. However, you can use any kind of coco, or simply, melt a bar of chocolate.