Covering Flourless Cakes With Fondant Icing

Our answer

Nigella's Chocolate Olive Oil Cake (from Nigellissima and on the Nigella website) and Flourless Chocolate Lime Cake are flourless, gluten free cakes made with ground almonds (almond meal). As the cakes are gluten free they tend to be more fragile than a regular cake and we suspect that unfortunately you may find it very difficult to cover either of them with fondant icing. The cakes are also very moist and may "sweat" slightly under a fondant layer.

The cakes are also only a single layer and because of the fragile nature of the cake it would be difficult to stack layers of the cake or cut it into novelty shapes. In addition, both cakes tend to have slightly raised edges, which will be tricky to shave down for a flat surface (turning the cakes over and icing the base would also be tricky), so it would be very difficult to achieve a smooth finish. Instead you may like to try Nigella's Chocolate Fudge Cake (from Nigella Bites and on the Nigella website), which is made with corn oil, or her Devil's Food Cake (from Kitchen and on the Nigella website). These cakes are a little more robust, but both contain gluten.