chocolate egg white cake

After the weeks that consisted of writing papers for uni, procrastinating = writing everything that wasn’t the papers obsessively, taking exams, dressing up for the oral ones, wasting time waiting in lines, worrying over my sudden inability to speak Italian etc., last Friday I finally came back home and could say it’s over. Well, I had a Japanese test yesterday, but it was easy and almost pleasant.

I, being deluded like always, was happy to have some time off to do nothing, laze around, fall asleep watching movies, write letters and all the small pleasures. I was even doing good for one day; I even managed to put my plans into life and went with dad to work on Saturday – felt more like a field trip – with the point of doing some food-shopping after wards. I baked cakes, went to Church, watched some TV (that’s something I hardly ever do), spent some time with my family. But somehow in the meantime, I just came up with a plot or a story and it wouldn’t leave me alone, so Sunday after Mass and breakfast, I starts to plan out the plot and write the story. Then there was family dinner.

Sunday was the first sunny day in weeks, and it was warm and lovely and I went cycling for almost three hours. I haven’t cycled since November, because of snow and ice and freezing temperatures around, and the feeling of being out again was amazing. When I came back, I went back to writing.

That’s how the rest of the week was like: wake up at 5:30; write until 11; crawl out of the bed and eat something; cycle/cook dinner/do other chores; family dinner; write until 8 p.m. = supper; write some more; fall asleep trying to read.

Working on two long stories at the same time is probably not the best idea. But the Saturday-concept one was 5 parts done in 5 days, about 21k total. The other is the 75k monster that I’ve been working on for two months.

So, instead of having time to relax, I made myself a perfect regimen of writing and writing and writing, and it was just like I explained to my friend yesterday: I kept asking myself hey, are you still typing?

Word count since Sunday, about 30k, 10-12 to go in two days, because on Saturday, my aforementioned friend (the one I went to visit in summer in England) comes over for two weeks, and I really, really can’t wait.

We've had end-of-exams fancy dinner together, since any excuse is good for making great food, and the dessert there was made almost entirely out of egg yolks. So I was left with the egg whites again and decided to try a new recipe in which I could use them. The cake is very soft, fluffy but at the same time chewy in the good way, and more chocolaty than I have expected, it has the slightest flavor of almonds and if perfect.

chocolate egg white cake cake 

adapted from here

150 g dark chocolate

6 egg whites

½ tsp cream of tartar

150 g sugar

35 g flour

35 g almond meal
*for gluten-free, use 45 g almond meal and 25 g potato flour

prepare a 25cm/10” round pan: sprinkle it with baking spray and sprinkle with flour

melt the chocolate in water bath

whip egg whites until foamy, add cream of tartar and keep beating to soft peaks, then add sugar in 3-4 portions and beat for about 5 minutes, until they are stiff, glossy and the sugar is dissolved

add chocolate to the egg whites, mix delicately with a spatula

add flour and almond meal, mix until incorporated

pour the batter into the pan and bake in pre-heated oven in 180C for about 40 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean

let the cake cool in half-open oven, don't worry if it collapses a bit, that's normal

best served with good ice cream (I had simple vanilla), some chocolate syrup, and some fruit, especially berries or cherries or poached pears