I cannot believbe it - I spent about an hour typing in some recipes and hit the wrong button and the entire reply disappeared!

so second time attempt and let's hope this one works

This is a sephardic passover cake from claudia roden's book "teh book of jewish food" which is a wonderful book exploring the history and settlement of jews through their food. It's about 50% text and 50% recipes.

chocolate cake

original recipe

9oz dark chocolate
4oz butter
6 eggs separated
3oz sugar
4 oz ground almonds


I substitute 6oz of bakers sugar free chocolate and therefore need to make up for 3oz sugar from the original chocolate plus substitute for 3oz ofthe actual sugar. That makes 0.86 cups splenda in total which is 1/2 cup plus 1/3 cup.

melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler

whisk the egg yolks and all the splenda until pale and thick.

fluff up the ground almonds with a fork and then fold in with the chocolate mixture into the egg yolks.

in a separate grease free bowl whisk the egg whites until stiff. fold into the mix.

grease a 9" non stick pan - pour in the mix and bake at 350degrees for 45 minutes.


CR notes that some people add the grated zest of an orange.


Her book also has several cakes based on ground almonds and eggs. I have notg tried them but this is one of my favourite cake recipes which is very similar to her recipes. I make this all the while, and provided that you make it with a light touch it will always come out well. You can also use it for muffins in paper cases with or witout blueberries. It is based on a recipe from Peter Thomsons's gluten free cookery.



4 oz butter (or 1/2 cup sunflower oil)
1 cup splenda
4 large eggs
7 oz ground almonds
optional - 1 tsp vanilla or almond essence



melt the butter and leave to cool

whisk the eggs and splenda until light and doubled in bulk

fold in the melted butter and almonds ( careful because the butter pools at the bottom and you need to keep stirring longer than you think)

pour into a greased non stick 8" cake tin, or a ring tin (bundt tin??) or paper muffin cases. yield will depend a bit on how hard you stirred and so you may have enough left over for a muffin or two.

bake for 30 - 45 minbs at 350 degrees ( muffins 20 mins) the top of the cake should be golden and just coming away at the sides.

LEAVE IN THE TIN FOR TEN MINUTES otherwise the cake will tear as it comes out.

cool on a wire rack.

this will keep for days - muffins up to 10 days in ziplock bag in fridge.

this is nice for parties made in a ring with berries and cream in the middle.

happy baking

Fiona