[volcano cake]

It's my youngest boy's 8th birthday today, and the cake request was a volcano!! Mmmmm, challenge accepted.

Here's the recipe:

VOLCANO CAKE

6 eggs (separated)

1/2 cup stevia

2 tbs cocoa powder (for the egg whites)

2 tbs cocoa powder (for the egg yolks)

2 tbs almond spread

1 1/2 cups SR flour

1/2 zucchini (peeled and finely grated)

1/2 carrot (peeled and finely grated)

1/4 cup choc bits

1/2 cup milk

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius.

2. Whisk the egg whites, stevia and 2 tbs cocoa powder until it forms soft peaks. (This may take a while, so be patient.) Hint: The mixture goes lighter in colour as you get close. :)

3. In a food processor mix together egg yolks, 2 tbs cocoa powder, almond spread, flour, zucchini, carrot, choc bits and milk. Blitz until thoroughly combined.

4. Set aside 1/3 of the egg white mixture.

5. To the remaining egg whit mixture fold in the rest of the ingredients you'd mixed together.

6. Pour this mixture (gently) into a 25cm spring form cake pan.

7. Then gently scoop the egg white mixture you saved into a mound on top of the centre of the cake. Use a spatula to pull up and smooth the sides of this mound to form a slight ridge around a depression at the top (this is the crater at the top of the volcano).

8. Bake for approx. 1 hr (until a skewer tests clean).

9. Once the cake is cool, drip melted chocolate around the rim of the 'top of the volcano' allowing it to run down the sides. As the chocolate starts to set, draw it up to the rim of the crater with a bamboo skewer and sculpt/mould the volcano into your desired shape. Chill the cake until the chocolate fully sets.

10. Make a red jelly separately and when set scoop into the crater (and put some flowing down the side) before serving. 

(The red jelly with the chocolate is very Black Forest-like. Delish.)

The texture of the cake was wonderfully 'cakey' and moist, and the choc bits sunk to the bottom making a great 'sedimentary layer'. The meringue layer of the cake under the crust was gooey and sweet, and although the chocolate top was at least 2-3cm thick at it's centre, a hot knife and cracking sections off worked a treat to distribute to my boy and his two friends ... they even came back for seconds!! (Not that I told them there were vegetables in the cake!!)