While doing my homework for the NY Chocolate Show 2010 (Nov 11-14), I noticed that Phaidon had seized the opportunity of Chocolate Week in London (October 11-17) to share via their Phaidon Agenda some of the unctuous, scrumptious chocolate recipes one can find in their cookbooks.
One of them especially caught my attention, a Chocolate Cake, simple and unadorned. Maybe that was part of its appeal. Recipe was updated by Clotilde Dussoulier for the first English edition of French classic cookbook I know how to cook by Ginette Mathiot and photographed by Andy Sewell.
Here's the recipe:
Ingredients
70g (2½oz) butter, plus extra for greasing
140g (4¾oz) chocolate, chopped
4 eggs, separated
90g (3¼oz) flour
140g (4¾oz) sugar
1 teaspoon flavouring, such as rum, Kirsch or orange-flower water
1 quantity Chocolate Icing
Candied fruit, such as cherries, oranges and angelica, to decorate
Method
Preheat the oven to 150°C/300°F/Gas Mark 2. Grease a cake tin with butter.
In a pan, melt the chocolate with the butter over a very low heat.
Remove from the heat and stir in the egg yolks, one by one, followed by the flour and sugar.
In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites and flavouring to stiff peaks.
Fold into the chocolate mixture. Pour into the prepared cake tin and bake for 50 minutes.
When the cake comes out of the oven, allow to cool, then cover with the chocolate icing and decorate with candied fruit.
(* Recipe and photo copyright Phaidon, used by permission)