FLOURLESS CHOCOLATE CAKE

by Shumaila

Yesterday, it was our 6 month anniversary! (Saying that aloud reminds me of the How I Met Your Mother episode where Robin dumps her boyfriend for celebrating their weekly anniversary- she finds it gay!ouch!). Anywho, and hopefully not sounding gay, yesterday V and I completed 6 months of being together as a married couple. And for us, it was a big deal! Since we had two weddings- 19th March we had our Hindu wedding and 20th March our Sikh one, we get two days to celebrate our anniversary (I’m sure in the future it will be a handy excuse for someone who forgets our anniversary-‘Oh! For me, it will always be on the 20th!’).

Though we wished each other on 19th, I wanted to surprise V with a cake. And since 19th was a Sunday, a day when V is in the house the whole day, I decided to surprise him on the 20th. Because we ate out on 19th, he thought we already celebrated our anniversary and was clueless of the surprise I was cooking up or more like baking up. I am a genius!

So yesterday, I baked the cake in the morning, hid it in the guest room when he came home for lunch. Assembled the cake as soon as he left. Since I had to go for Zumba in the evening, I hid the cake in the fridge, so that when V came back from work he accidentally wouldn’t see the cake. And, luckily, I can trust him to not look inside the fridge when I am not there! When I came back from Zumba, V decided to go to the gym- great!, giving me time to set up surprise- candles, cake and the works.

Now, the cake wasn’t as great as I would have liked it to be. I wanted to like this recipe, I really did want to- its Julia Child’s. But, something just did not sit right with me when it came to the taste. Even though I like my chocolate bitter- the cake was more bitter than I would have liked. Yes, there were some issues with the ingredients- I did not have the required amount of bittersweet chocolate, so substituted a part of it with unsweetened chocolate and upped the sugar amount- but the cake was still quite bitter.

So instead of posting the recipe of the cake I made for our 6 month anniversary, I am posting the recipe for my famous (yes, I count something liked in my family as famous) flourless chocolate cake recipe which has consistently given me great results (the picture at the beginning of this post is of that same famous chocolate cake). The cake has more of a mousse-like texture and is really, really rich. So keep the portions small!

(Since I have not made this cake here in the US, I don’t have the step-by-step photographs. Hopefully the directions are clear enough to understand!)

FLOURLESS CHOCOLATE CAKE

source: Bon Appetit, Sept ’08

INGREDIENTS

1 cup water

3/4 cup sugar

9 tbsp unsalted butter, diced

18 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped

6 large eggs

Ganache

1 cup heavy cream

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 F. Butter a 10″ diam springform pan. Line the bottom of the pan with parchment rounds. Butter the parchment. Wrap 3 layers of heavy duty foil around outside of the pan, bringing the foil to the top of the rim. (Like how one does for a cheesecake.)

Combine 1 cup water & sugar in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Simmer for 5 min. Remove from heat.

Melt butter in a large saucepan over low heat. Add chocolate & whisk until smooth. Whisk sugar syrup into the chocolate, cool slightly. Add eggs to the chocolate mix & whisk until well blended. Pour batter into prepared pan. Place cake pan in a large roasting pan. Add enough hot water to the roasting pan to come halfway up sides of cake pan.

Bake until the center no longer moves when the pan is gently shaken, about 50 min. Remove from the water bath. Transfer to a rack. Cool completely in the pan.

For ganache: Bring whipping cream to simmer in small saucepan over med heat. Remove from heat. Add the chocolate & whisk until smooth. Pour over top of cake still in pan. Gently shake pan to distribute ganache evenly over top of cake. Refrigerate cake in pan until ganache is set, about 2 hrs.

You can make the cake 2 days ahead. Cover & keep in the fridge.

Run a knife around the pan to loosen the cake & release sides.

Cover with chocolate shavings & cocoa dusting.