How do you get it creamy yet fluffy, have you made the original River Café
chocolate nemesis recipe, and which other gluten-free desserts are worth a
go?
This week has been a learning curve for me. I’d naively assumed that a
flourless chocolate cake was the kind of thing you might make when a coeliac
friend was coming for tea, possibly involving some sort of ground nuts or
cornflour.
But after looking at a few recipes, it dawned on me that I was barking up
completely the wrong tree. Though such cakes certainly exist, the classic
flourless variety doesn’t just eschew wheat, but any sort of starchy meal,
giving it a rich flavour and a dense, fudgy or creamy texture that puts it
firmly in the dessert, rather than the teatime, category. (Though, of course,
there’s nothing to stop you inviting that coeliac friend for dinner.)
Flourless chocolate cakes don’t tend to vary much in the ingredient
department: there is chocolate, obviously, plus eggs, sugar and some sort of
fat, usually butter but occasionally cream. The difference, as I discovered,
comes in how they are combined and baked.
The chocolate
Justin
Gellatly’s flourless chocolate cake.
Most recipes use just melted chocolate, but ex-St John pastry chef Justin
Gellatly’s excellently named Bread, Cake, Doughnut, Pudding sifts in some cocoa
powder as well. Having used a combination of the two with great success in my
brownie and my teatime chocolate cake recipes, I know that cocoa comes in useful
when you want a concentrated chocolate flavour without making the cake itself
too sickly, and so it proves here. Though undeniably rich, Gellatly’s cake
manages to be intensely flavoured but less cloying than the infamous River Café
chocolate nemesis (the easy version, obviously; I’m not in the market for the
“kind of cowpat” reported by those unfortunates who trialled the original
recipe).
Gellatly and the River Café both use a relatively small amount of chocolate
and cocoa in proportion to the other ingredients, which proves wise: I find both
David Lebovitz’s Racines cake, from his book Ready for Dessert, and San
Francisco’s Zuni Café’s signature gateau victoire a little too bitter for my
taste, though those with more sophisticated palates may disagree. I do like
Lebovitz’s cocoa nibs, though – these crunchy shards of roasted cocoa bean add
texture and a hit of bitterness to each mouthful. If you can’t find them,
however, they’re not essential.
The sugar
David
Lebovitz’s flourless chocolate cake.
Everyone except Lebovitz uses caster sugar – he goes for granulated, but it
doesn’t seem to make much difference as far as I can tell. The River Café adds
most of the sugar in the form of a syrup, for reasons I don’t entirely
understand, but which someone better at kitchen chemistry than me might be able
to explain – syrups are often used to keep cakes soft and moist, but without
flour, this seems less likely. None of the recipes I try have quite the right
amount of sugar for my liking. Annie Bell’s French and flourless,from her Baking
Bible, is closest, while Lebovitz and Zuni are too bitter, and the River Café
and Gellatly a smidgen too sweet. As well as striking a balance with quantity,
I’m going to sub in a proportion of soft brown sugar too, for a hint of caramel
flavour. I’m surprised that Lebovitz and Gellatly are the only bakers to make
mention of a balancing pinch of salt, which is helpful for rounding out the
flavour of most sweet dishes, but absolutely essential in a rich dish like
this.
The eggs and fats
River
Cafe’s flourless chocolate cake.
Eggs are usually separated and whisked up independently to give the cake a
moussey consistency, which saves it from overwhelming heaviness. The River Café
and Zuni use whole eggs instead, the latter with two extra yolks as well, which
explains why their cakes have the smoothest, densest texture. Gellatly’s cake
contains a far higher proportion of eggs than any other recipe – 11 as opposed
to only four in the Zuni version – which I suspect is why it is incredibly rich
yet surprisingly light. Butter is the fat of choice here; only Zuni chooses
whipped cream instead, diluting the chocolate flavour.
Extras
Annie
Bell’s flourless chocolate cake.
Lebovitz flavours his cake with vanilla essence and espresso, while Zuni uses
just the coffee. Though I can’t pick up much in the way of vanilla, I’m
surprised by how much difference even a little coffee makes – though I’d be
hard-pressed to identify it as a flavour, the bitterness works brilliantly with
that of the chocolate, giving the whole thing greater depth.
Cooking
Zuni’s
flourless chocolate cake.
The River Café and Zuni both bake their versions in a water bath to moderate
the temperature for a creamier result, but as this is still a cake rather than a
mousse, I prefer it to have a little bit of fluffiness to it. Gellatly manages
to achieve both textures in the same dish by baking two-thirds of his mixture
for 30 minutes, cooling it for 20, adding the remainder and putting it back in
the oven for another 20 minutes, so the bottom is drier and lighter and the top
creamy and dense. It’s a really nice idea, but a bit of a faff. Instead, I’m
plumping for something in between the two – a rich, dense chocolate cake with
just enough fluff to make it worthy of the name. (Serves 8-10) 260g dark chocolate, broken into pieces 260g butter 1 tbsp strong coffee 8 eggs, separated 100g soft light brown sugar 160g golden caster sugar 85g cocoa powder ½ tsp salt 2 tbsp cocoa nibs (optional)
Grease a 23cm cake tin and line with greaseproof paper. Melt the chocolate
and butter together in a heatproof bowl set over, but not touching, a pan of
simmering water. Stir until smooth, then stir in the coffee and set aside to
cool slightly. Heat the oven to 160C/320F/gas mark three.
Put the egg yolks and sugars in a food processor and whisk until doubled in
volume. Turn the machine off and sift the cocoa powder on top of the egg mixture
(don’t just dump it in or you’ll get lumps). Add the salt, then mix on a low
speed until the cocoa is well combined.
Put the egg whites in another large bowl and whisk to the soft-peak
stage.
Gently fold the melted chocolate mixture into the egg yolk mixture. Fold a
third of the egg white into the mixture to loosen it before very carefully
folding the rest in, until the mixture is no longer streaky but an even, rich
brown. Sprinkle the cocoa nibs on top, if using.
Spoon into the tin and bake for 40-50 minutes until just set on top, then
allow to cool in the tin on a wire rack. Serve with something tart, such as
creme fraiche.
Bonhomie … the idea of sharing is a key part of meal times in France.
Photograph: Jessica Sample/Corbis
Every day a small miracle occurs without anyone paying the slightest
attention. At breakfast, lunch and supper tens of millions of French people
decide to gather round a table at the same time in order to share a meal, as if
some invisible conductor raised his baton to mark the start of festivities. This
ritual is so deep-rooted that the French find it quite usual. For foreigners, on
the other hand, it is like something from outer space. "When the American
sociologist David Lerner visited France in 1956 he was stunned by the
inflexibility of the French regarding food," says fellow sociologist Claude
Fischler, head of research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research
). "He couldn't understand why they all ate at a fixed time, like at the
zoo."
French eating habits are indeed very singular. "Everyday life in France is
marked by three traditional meals," says Thibaut de Saint Pol, a sociologist at
the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Cachan. "At 1pm half the population are at table
and at 8.15pm this activity concerns more than a third of the population. Meals
play a large part in organising social life." This major collective ritual is
specific to France. A graph plotting meal times produced by Eurostat [the
statistical office of the European Union] is almost flat for Sweden, Finland,
Slovenia and Britain; all the way through the day people feed on various snacks,
at no particular time. The same graph for France rises to three spectacular
spikes, morning, noon and night.
But this is not the only unusual feature of meals in France. People here also
spend more time eating than their fellow Europeans: two hours, 22 minutes a day
in 2010, 13 minutes longer than in 1986! "If you add the hours of domestic
labour directly related to eating – cooking, washing up and so on – this is one
of the day's main activities," Saint Pol wrote in the journal Economie et
Statistique in 2006. The French are also very keen on commensality [eating
together]. According the Crédoc consumer studies and research institute, 80% of
meals are taken with other people. "In France meals are strongly associated with
good company and sharing, which is undoubtedly less so in other countries," says
Loïc Bienassis, a researcher at the European Institute of Food History and
Culture .
Americans take a radically different approach. There is nothing sacred about
meals: everyone eats at their own speed, depending on their appetite, outside
constraints and timetable. As long ago as 1937 French writer Paul Morand was
surprised to see New Yorkers lunching alone, in the street, "like in a stable".
US practice is so different from French ritual that it sometimes requires
explanation. "There's a secondary school in Toulouse which organises exchanges
with young Americans," says social anthropologist Jean-Pierre Poulain. "To avoid
any misunderstandings teachers warn families before their children leave that
the start of their stay will not be marked by an evening meal, as in France.
When the young visitors arrive they are shown the fridge and told they can help
themselves whenever they like."
The British are very keen on snacking too. Saint Pol can see no evidence of
"food synchronism". According to Poulain and fellow sociologist Cyrille Laporte,
food consumption is spread out over the day, resulting in a "loss of
conviviality". "Many Brits eat at the wheel or with one eye on their PC, which
is sacrilege for the French, who regard meals as a 'full-time' activity. In
France meals are one of the best bits of the day," Saint Pol adds. In a survey
of how French people spend their time the National Institute of Statistics and
Economic Studies found that eating procures almost as much pleasure as reading
or listening to music. Eating alone, at work or at home, is often seen as a
trial.
Social practice varies so much from one community to another because food is
so much more than just a functional activity: it is loaded with cultural values,
symbols and identities, what the French anthropologist Marcel Mauss called a
"total social fact".
"In the US the dominant conception of food is nutritional," Fischler
explains. "Feeding oneself is above all a matter of making rational decisions to
satisfy bodily needs. In contrast the French have a culinary conception of food,
putting the emphasis on flavour and pleasure. In our surveys we asked French and
American people to say what they associated with various words. When we
suggested 'chocolate cake', the Americans thought of 'guilt', the French,
'birthdays'."
The two cultures also see guests in a different light. "In the US food is
regarded as an individual concern," Fischler adds. "Everyone is different and
everyone is free to make up their own mind and accept the consequences. It is an
individualistic, contract-based model. If someone invites you to dinner, you can
tell them you're a vegetarian and no one will be offended. You're entitled to
eat differently. In France, on the contrary, food is a collective concern,
almost a form of communion: the idea of sharing is a key part of the meal. So
there are customs it's hard to get round – people will take a poor view of
someone who doesn't partake of the main dish or only eats gluten-free foods.
What counts most of all is conviviality."
This model, based on sharing, goes hand in hand with great social pressure.
Unlike the Americans or British, the French have little patience with those who
diverge from the norm. They tend to disapprove of people who nibble whenever it
suits them, start a meal with fruit or do not eat meat. "French-style meals are
heavily codified in terms of pace and content," says Martin Bruegel, a historian
at the Food and Social Sciences laboratory at the National Institute for
Agricultural Research. "They often involve constraints, even a form of
discipline, leaving little room for individual wishes. If you don't want to eat
at a set time with your workmates or you don't fancy the main dish in a family
meal, you must explain yourself. Complying with this ritual can be a bit of an
imposition."
Because it requires guests to conform to a large number of standards the
French gastronomic meal, which was added to the Unesco World Heritage list in
2010, seems somewhat out of sync with the trend towards greater
individualisation. In the 20th century, the French, much as people in other
developed countries, discovered the joys of individual emancipation: nowadays
they want to decide on the course of their own lives, choose their partner, job,
sexual mores and life style. So at first sight this yearning for personal
fulfilment seems to be at odds with France's inflexible eating habits (set meal
times, unchanging format – starter, main course, dessert – and limited scope for
special diets).
Of course, modern life has not gone unnoticed, even in France. Grazing,
rejected by nutrition experts as a form of heresy, is on the rise, particularly
among young people. In 2010 an Insee survey found that 40% of under-25s consume
snacks – crisps and chocolate bars – during the day, compared with half that
number among the over-60s. The past 20 years have also simplified the
sacrosanct, three-course meal. According to a survey of health and eating habits
conducted in 2010 by the National Institute for Prevention and Health Education,
the number of people who only eat one or two courses for their evening meal is
steadily rising, up from 38% in 1998 to 49% in 2008. With passing time the basic
paradigm has become more flexible, in office cafeterias and homes.
"It has loosened up quite a lot," Poulain asserts. "Whereas in the 1960s
works canteens only served set meals, they have since introduced self-service
systems with several dishes to choose from. At home it's much the same: everyone
has some of the main dish, but not necessarily the same afters. It's one of the
big changes we've seen in the recent decades, with increasingly individualised
choice of foods, even if it mainly concerns the beginning and end of the
meal."
Despite such changes – and contrary to what many feared – France has not
succumbed to fast food. The French meal still plays a key part in people's lives
and imagination. The two main pillars of this model – eating at the same time
and socialising – are still just as solid. Regardless of the spread of fast-food
outlets, the upheaval in the world of work and the emergence of a youth culture,
the French still eat their three meals a day at a set time and attach great
importance to conviviality, pleasure and sharing. "For the past 20 years
alarmist commentators have repeatedly predicted the demise of the French meal,"
Saint Pol says. "But meals in France still structure our daily lives and our
relations with others."
French eating habits have proved sufficiently robust to survive, even at
McDonald's. "When the fast-food outlets first launched in France they were open
all day, like in the US, assuming they would have a steady stream of customers,"
says Jean-Pierre Corbeau, emeritus professor at Tours University. "In practice
they were deserted at 9am, but seething from 12 noon to 2pm, because the French
go on taking their meals at the customary times. Customers – particularly young
people – made it a relatively social experience. Instead of eating on their own,
or taking a burger back to their car, they would turn up in groups, all sit
together at one table and pass food around."
One of the reasons for the solidity of these customs is that they are firmly
rooted in the past. "France has a Roman Catholic tradition which sustains a
sensual, hedonistic relation to food," says Pascal Ory, a professor at the
Sorbonne in Paris. "In the Jura, for example, nuns in Château-Chalon took charge
of promoting vin jaune. Catholicism, with its celebration of the Eucharist,
helped develop a real culture of eating and drinking, with the emphasis on the
collective, communal dimension of meals. This is not the case in countries with
Anglo-Saxon roots, where Protestantism entertains a more Puritan relationship
with food. The Kellogg brothers, for example, were Seventh-day Adventists and
vegetarians who wanted to use their corn flakes to combat Falstaff-style
breakfasts centring on meat and beer."
In Babette's Feast, the Danish novelist Karen Blixen subtly highlighted these
cultural differences. When the central character, a French cook who takes refuge
in Denmark after the Paris Commune, wins 10,000 francs in a lottery, she spends
the whole lot on a slap-up meal, inviting the two daughters of a Lutheran pastor
and their friends. The guests are so embarrassed by this spread, brimming with
flavour, fragrance and colour, that they hesitate to indulge. "To begin with
they even refrain from commenting on the dishes Babette serves," Fischler
observes. "In Protestant countries it is slightly indecent to talk about food at
table. In France, on the other hand, such talk is not only legitimate but
necessary."
France's rural past is also a major factor in the importance attached to
eating. "In peasant families meals were often the only time they stopped
working," Corbeau explains. "It was a break for a moment of convivial exchange,
sharing and joking. This rural tradition lasted longer in France than in
Britain, where industrial and urban development started much earlier. When small
French farmers left the land for the factory, in the late 19th century, their
entitlement to a proper break was a key issue in negotiations with employers:
many workers refused to eat in the workshops, standing beside their
machines."
So is this why these traditions are so persistent? The French tend to see
gastronomy as an art form. "Grimod de La Reynière, one of the founders of
gourmet food criticism, started as a drama critic and often referred to
Michelangelo," Ory recalls with a smile. Advocates of a balanced diet have no
complaints either: with its emphasis on sharing and togetherness, the French
approach to food seems to help limit obesity. "People pay more attention to
standards of nutrition in a group than on their own," Bienassis asserts. "We
drink in moderation, try to have some of everything, avoid taking a third
helping because we are being watched and judged by others. Which is not the case
when we nibble on our own beside the fridge."
So the pleasure of having a proper meal is also good for us, which is just as
well!
Mehernosh Mody is behind the eclectic menu at West London's La Porte des
Indes, which features classic, vegetarian and light lunch menus as well as
offering live cooking demonstrations. Here Mehernosh shares his top tips for
keeping your Indian dishes authentic and healthy...
Use oil sparingly...
Olive oil has been found to have great health benefits but should be used
only for stir-frying and pan-frying, and just a splash is needed. It is not
recommended for deep-frying due to the large quantity required. Using non-stick
cookware can help you to limit the use of oil when cooking curries.
Cut down on fat...
If trying to cut down the fat content of your meal, change the menu and cook
Indian dishes and breads that require no frying.
Substitutions for coconut milk...
For adding richness to a dish, try using skimmed milk, cashew nut paste or
poppy seed paste instead of the regular coconut milk or cream.
Try
tandoori...
Grill, boil, steam and bake instead of frying where possible. Tandoori
grilling is the best form of cooking where minimal or no oil is used and the
intense heat cooks the food quickly, sealing in all the nutrients.
Simple swaps...
Opt for wholemeal flour instead of plain flour when making chappatis or
parathas and swap white rice for brown basmati.
Lighten the load...
Bulk up dishes using healthy legumes such as sprouted beans and lentils. You
will still get a substantial meal but using less meat will make your dish
lighter.
Better-for-you bases...
While coconut products such as creams and milks have health benefits, the fat
content is usually high so opt for tomato bases rather than creamy curries or
use low-fat yogurt as a substitute.
