Low fat chocolate cake

LOW-FAT CHOCOLATE CAKE

Cakes and healthy diets don't often go together, but Rosemary Stanton's low-fat chocolate cake, from her new book 'Great Food for Men' is an exception to the rule. Unlike most chocolate mud cakes, which have around 80g of fat per slice, each slice of Rosemary's cake contains only 1g of fat.

100g pitted prunes
3/4 cup apple juice
1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 cup self-raising flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
4 egg whites
1/2 cup castor sugar
2 teaspoons icing sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 160°C and line a 20cm round cake tin with baking paper.
2. Place the prunes, apple juice and bicarbonate of soda in a saucepan, bring to the boil, turn off the heat, cover and leave to cool. Once cool, puree until smooth.
3. Sift the flour and cocoa and stir into the cooled prune puree.
4. Beat the egg whites until stiff, adding sugar gradually. Fold half the egg whites into the prune mixture and then fold in the remaining egg whites. Keep stirring gently until the egg white is incorporated.
5. Spoon into the cake tin and bake for 35 minutes or until a cake skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool on a rack and just before serving, sieve the icing sugar over the top.
6. Serve with low-fat ice cream, low-fat fruche, or a coulis made from pureed, frozen raspberries. perfect