French Chocolate Cake

Week 13 of the Cookbook Challenge, the theme is Love. Love for me is a good chocolate cake, I tried out a recipe from a cookbook called Sweet Treats.

Ingredients:

250g dark chocolate, chopped

225g unsalted butter

1/2 cup sugar

2 tbsp brandy or orange liqueur

5 eggs

1 tbsp plain flour (I used almond meal)

icing sugar for dusting

I also added some grated orange zest

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees. Grease a 23×5cm springform tin. Line the base with baking paper. Wrap the base and sides in foil to keep water out.

Melt the chocolate, butter and sugar in a pan over low heat, stirring frequently, until smooth. Cool slightly. Stir in the brandy. Beat in the almond meal then slowly beat in the chocolate mixture until well blended. At this point you’re supposed to pour into the tin, but for me it was really runny and didn’t at all look like it would cook properly, so I added almost a cup of almond meal.

Place the tin in a large roasting tin and pour boiling water into the roasting tin to a depth of 2cm. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until the edge of the cake is set, but the centre is still soft to the touch.

Remove the tin from the water bath and remove the foil. Cool on a wire rack completely (the cake will sink in the centre and may crack).

Carefully run a knife around the edge of the cake. Remove the side of the springform tin and turn the cake onto a wire rack. Remove the springform base and the paper so the bottom of the cake is now on top.

Cut 6-8 strips of baking paper 1cm wide and place over the cake in a lattice style pattern. Dust the cake with icing sugar then carefully remove the paper. Serve cake with cream or ice cream.

The key to getting this cake right is to wait until it’s completely cool until you decorate with the icing sugar. I decorated when it was still a bit warm and by the time it was cut to eat the icing sugar had melted into the cake. It still tasted good though!