For the last thirty five years my favourite cholotate cake and the one I most often cook is one I originally found in The Contsance Spry Cookery Book all those years ago.
It is a wonderfully moist , flour free, dark chocolate cake which Constance calls Gateau Négresse.

I have lived with this name, thoughtlessly and heedlessly for all this time and its inherent racism never crossed my mind until a few years ago when I started to put this cake on the menu of my restaurant.

Then I started to rechristen it, Chocolate and Almond Cake , Rich Chocolate Cake etc.
I find that in my various versions of it which are in my web page I call it my various other names, as The Ultimate Chocolate Cake or Gateau Les Jumelles.

I was curious to see if it still exists under the name of Negresse and I did a little research and then discovered worse, that it could become even more racist and sexist as when the same cake was swathed in Crème Chantilly it was known as Négresse en Chemise and when Robert Carrier did a version without the cream in the sixties he called his version Négresse Sans Chemise.
Or -not to put a tooth in it- A black woman without her slip.

All this was brought forcefully back to me when a great friend of mine who lives in Tramore and is of African American origin asked me to make a chocolate cake for her husband’s fortieth birthday.
The next time we met she said that the cake had been a great success and then the fatal words ” What is it actually called?”
Only her gales of laughter when I blushed deeply while confessing the name saved me from total embarrasment.

I have just made another of these (from here on only called Chocolate and Almond ) cakes for a party(my own) tonight so here is the recipe.

225g (8 oz.) Unsalted Butter
225g (8 oz.) Caster Sugar
225g (8 oz.) Ground Almonds
225g (8 oz.) Dark Chocolate
4 Eggs.

You will need a large cake tin preferably 12″ in diameter and at least 2″deep.

Have the butter at room temperature,
Beat this with the sugar until the mixture is soft pale and creamy.
(Use an electric beater to avoid coronary)
Separate the eggs and , while still beating , drop the yolks into the butter and sugar mixture one at a time. Melt the chocolate (easiest done in the microwave). Stir the almonds into the cake mixture and then stir in the melted chocolate.
Beat the whites until stiff and fold these into the cake mixture.
Line the cake tin with non stick paper and pour in the mixture.
Bake at gas 3 160C 325F for 35 to 40 mts (depending on the depth of the tin and on whether the oven is fan assisted or not)
Test for “done” by sticking a skewer in the middle- it can still be a little gooey. Leave it to cool before you take it from the tin. It is so rich it needs neither icing nor filling but a little whipped cream on the side wont go astray.