This recipe was inspired by the tiffin cake in today’s Sunday Telegraph. I thought it looked very tempting so I created a version suitable for low-carb diets.
A tiffin cake base is usually made from biscuits mixed with butter and cocoa powder. My low-carb version uses toasted nuts and seeds to achieve the required crunchy factor.
This recipe includes an insane amount of chocolate, so the carb count is a bit higher than usual, at about 8g net carbs per serving (if you are looking for lower carb content, check out my other chocolate-based recipes, as most of them have a lower carb content than this).
Cake ingredients:
- 270g (9oz) unsweetened chocolate
(I tend to use Willie’s Cacao. In the US, Ghirardelli do unsweetened chocolate bars.) - 240g (8oz) fresh double cream
- 60g (2oz) unsalted butter
- 60g (2oz) ground almonds
- 90g (3oz) mixed nuts and seeds (I used sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and pecans)
- 4 tbsp Truvia (or your preferred sweetener to taste)
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- cocoa powder or chocolate shavings to decorate
To make the cake:
- Melt 60g of butter and 60g of chocolate using the water bath method – put the bowl to sit on top of a larger pan of simmering water, so that part of the bowl is inside the pan and just above the water. (This is called Bain-Marie, or “water bath” – watch this 50-second video if you are not sure how to do it).
- Toast your mixed nuts and seeds in a hot pan and crush them lightly.
- Add the toasted nuts and seeds, ground almonds and 1 tbsp Truvia into the melted chocolate and mix thoroughly.
- Butter a 23cm (9 inch) springform tin and spread your nuts and chocolate mixture in a single layer. Stick it in the fridge while you prepare the filling.
- Melt the remaining chocolate (210g / 7 oz) as above.
- Once completely melted, cool it down to room temperature.
- Slowly mix double cream, vanilla extract and the remaining 3 tbsp of Truvia into the melted chocolate and blend well.
- Pour the chocolate filling over the base layer in your cake tin.
- Refrigerate overnight, or stick in the freezer for an hour or so if you need it urgently.
- Before serving, sprinkle some cocoa powder or chocolate shavings over the top.
- Be careful when cutting the cake as its texture is different to standard baked cakes, so don’t let it break.
Nutritional information
- For the whole cake, using the amounts listed above: 3218 cal, 95g net carbs, 368g fat, 78g protein.
- Per serving (assuming 12 servings in a single cake): 268 cal, 8g net carbs, 31g fat, 7g protein.
