This was another, oh dear, what am i going to do cake. It was made in March for one of my friends birthday. Well, Ive known this friend since I was in Form 1 (counts back, OMG 14 years ago!!!!) I remember she sat next to me. Ive then, known her as a sporty person. Shes more of the Sporty Spice if we were to give us all a label, I would probably be a Posh because I generally am not a bright, shiney, happy, person from the first look. I am the one with the cool and don;t talk to me look. Meh. But all in all, if u know me, Im not that much of a Posh anyway

AAAAnnnywaayyy, to speed things up (youre not expecting the whole 14 years story are u?) I asked her what she wanted for her bday cake. She said rum and raisin related. OKAY. To be honest, Im not the biggest fan of rum and raisin ice cream. Not sure if its because of the cheap non-alcoholic rum these people use here in halal ice cream parlour, or dried mediocre raisins in it. Not blaming anyone but since, I have a (checked) ice cream machine, a cake mixer (checked), and an (actually 2) oven (checked), Im going to make a cake, AND a rum and raisin ice cream.

Now for the rum and raisin ice cream, I cheated. I had a vanilla ice cream which Ive made a couple of days before the real day, due toexcessiveyolks lingering around the fridge. So I just macerated raisins in rum for a couple of hours, then drain them and stir into the vanilla ice cream. Easy peasy

*sprinkled with fleur de sel

So now the cake.. hrm chocolate and raisin was what I had in mind, but I wasnt heading towards the line of entremet or anything over the top. I decided on the classic flourless rich chocolate cake, which would be darn great paired with rum and raisin ice cream *drools* Now with most flourless chocolate cake, almond meal would be a prompt substitute for flour. Then I was juuuust thinking, out of the blue.. Is it possible to use macarons? Since macarons = almond meal and sugar and egg whites, it should work. Ive had some not so pretty and cracked macarons kept in the freezer for god-knows-why. So I took it out, whizzed it in the blender and added into the cake, of course I adjusted the amount of sugar since macarons already had its fair share of sugar.

(now I need to go find my recipe book.. wwhhheerree is it)

Flourless Macaron Chocolate Rum & Raisin Cake

(adapted from Nigella Lawsons Flourless Chocolate Cake)

serves 12

150g dark couverture chocolate (used Valrhona Guanaja for this one)

150g unsalted butter

6 eggs

150g caster sugar

150g macarons (whizzed to fine)

4 tsp cocoa powder

100g raisins

a couple dashes of Rum

savoiardi lady fingers

fleur de sel, cocoa powder and cocoa nibs for garnishing

Method

1. Pour hot water into raisins, let it soak for 1-2 minutes then discard the water. Drain the raisins, add in rum to cover and let it absorb all goodness while u prepare the cake batter.

2. Preheat oven to 180C. Line cake tines (I used a 9 spring form)

3. Melt chocolate and butter in a microwavable bowl. Set aside to cool

4. Meanwhile whisk eggs and sugar til! l foamy and double or tripled in volume. gently fold in the macaron mixture and cocoa powder into eggs. I use a whisk to fold in this case. Add in melted chocolate and butter. Add in soaked raisins.

5. pour into baking tin, and bake for 40-45 minutes. The cake will be kinda firm on top but still a tad wobbly.

6. Remove from oven and let it cool on a wire rack. Remove the tin, place it on a cake board or serving plate.Dust the top with cocoa powder.Cutsavoiardi lady fingers in half and arrange the sides (I cheated. I had some spare ganache at hand, so I covered the side of the cake with ganache, then stuck the lady fingers at the side). Sprinkle some fleur de sel and cocoa nibs around the side of the cake.

Rum & Raisin Ice Cream

(cheats version)

1/2 portion homemade vanilla ice cream (recipe here)

1 cup raisins, soaked in rum

Method.

1. Discard juice from raisins, stir into vanilla ice cream. Let it freeze for a couple more hours.

2. Serve with cake.

Its a crazily rich cake!!! But its a flourless chocolate cake, its meant to be rich and dense and gooey and yummy. Traces of macarons in the cake? Not really as its kinda deformed earlier to become almond meal. so even if u were to use coloured plain macarons, it wont be visible either.

Macaron scrap! s? didnt turn out? dont throw it for it may come in handy to replace almond meal in certain recipes

Cheers.