This is adapted from a recipe by Nigel Slater, t.v. chef and bloke who knows about food.

Credit where credit's due, and all that.

Chocolate Espresso Cake

When it comes out of the oven the cake should be moist in the middle -- as it cools, it will sink a little and the crust will crisp slightly.

On cooling, the outside is like sponge, but the middle is like dense fudge, OK?

Basically, the better the ingredients, the better the dish -- when I say eggs, I mean large free range ones. When I say butter, I mean unsalted, good quality butter, not Wal-Mart Economy stuff.

It's just common sense, isn't it?

To serve 8 people.

180g good quality (lots of cocoa solids, people) dark chocolate
About 3 tablespoons of espresso
140g of butter, diced up
5 eggs, separated
200g golden caster sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
90g plain flour

Lightly butter a 21-23 cm shallow cake tin and line with baking parchment.

Melted the chopped chocolate in a (heatproof!) bowl set over a pan of simmering water. As soon as it starts to soften, add the coffee and leave it for 2 or 3 minutes. Stir very gently, and when the chocolate is all melted, add the butter. Stir this gently until the butter is all melted in.

Now, beat the egg whites until stiff, and fold in the sugar with a metal spoon.

Mix the baking powder, cocoa powder and flour.

REMOVE the chocolate from the heat (or else you'll get scrambled eggs!) quickly stir in the egg yolks, then slowly, gently fold the chocolate mix into the egg whites. Lastly, sift in your flour/cocoa powder mix.

Stir gently with a metal spoon, taking care not to knock out too much air. The mixture should feel light and wobbly. Don't overmix it -- just enough to mix in the flour. Scoop the mix into an oven preheated to 180 degrees C (Gas mark 4, I think) for 35 minutes. Leave to cool in it's tin, and then turn out. Dust with cocoa powder for decoration, if you like.