Craggy Chocolate Cake

Good evening, everyone.

I love to bake, and I only like to do from-scratch baking on the weekends, unless I happen to have a weekday off and am in the mood.  Because it was so dreary and cool out today, I thought I would at least bake something for the evening.  I saw the recipe for this cake this morning on "French Food At Home" hosted by Laura Calder on The Cooking Channel.  It is also available here: http://www.cookingchanneltv.com/recipes/laura-calder/craggy-chocolate-cake-recipe/index.html.

It is called a "craggy" cake because the top becomes cracked and craggy as it cools once it is removed from the oven.  It also deflates, so don't think you did anything wrong. 

It is a flourless cake, but it rises due to the egg whites.  The recipe is pretty easy.  It is highly recommended to have the butter and eggs at room temperature in order for the whole process to work smoothly.  7 ounces of butter is 1 stick plus 6 tablespoons.  This recipe was originally written in metric, so it had to be converted over to our method.  :)

You end up using three bowls - one for the melting of the chocolate, one for the egg yolks and one for the egg whites.  I have no patience to whisk the whites by hand, so I used the whisk attachment on my stand mixer to do it.  I did whisk the yolks with the sugar by hand, pretty easy.

When you melt the chocolate, you have to keep an eye on it.  Make sure the water in the pan does not touch the bottom of the bowl you melt the chocolate in.  The water needs to be simmering and not boiling, otherwise the chocolate will scorch - not good.  Keep stirring it every 30 seconds or so.  Stir the butter in by the tablespoon and continue to stir it to melt it into the chocolate.  

The recipe does call for 70% chocolate, and that is what you should use.  Semi-sweet, milk and white chocolate won't have the same effect as the bittersweet chocolate.

The rest of the recipe is pretty fine.  I used a 9" springform pan with perfect results.

Serve this with some slightly sweetened whipped cream and/or a drizzle of hot fudge.  I ate it plain tonight, and it was amazing.

It was a delicious cake!