Oily Flourless Chocolate Lime Cake

Our answer

The cake from Nigella's Flourless Chocolate Lime Cake With Margarita Cream (from KITCHEN) is a mixture of melted chocolate and butter, whisked eggs, sugar and ground almonds (almond meal). If the mixture has separated we suspect that it is most likely due to the chocolate separating at the first stage.

Chocolate is very sensitive to temperature and if the chocolate and butter are heated too much when melted then the chocolate can split which would mean that the fat from the butter and chocolate would not be emuslified and mixed thoroughly into the cake batter. The chocolate can also seize and split if any moisture got into the mixture during melting. The chocolate may have turned a little grainy, though this would be more difficult to see in the mixed cake batter as the ground almonds have a grainy texture too. As the cake bakes this fat will then leach out and may drip out of the bottom of a springform or loose bottomed pan. When melting the chocolate make sure that if you use a heatproof bowl over a pan of water, make sure that the bowl doesn't touch the water and that the bowl is a snug fit over the pan so that no steam or condensation gets into the bowl. Remove the bowl from the pan before all of the chocolate has melted and stir the chocolate and butter gently until smooth. If using a microwave follow the manufacturer's instructions but stop before all of the chocolate has melted and again stir gently until the mixture is smooth.