08 December 2010

Happy Birthday baby, got you on my miii-iiind

It's been birthdays galore lately.  Alistairs, mine, Jan's, KB's, plus a handful of friends'.  Good time to trial a few new cakes.  Plenty of guinea pigs.  Mwa ha haaaa.  Anyway, I came across this recipe, for Rich Chocolate Cake, in my trusty Edmonds Cookery Book (46th ed.) and thought it sounded perfect for a chocolate-lover's birthday repast.  Moist, dense and, presumably, uber-chocolatey.  Unfortunately it wasn't all that chocolatey, or very rich.  It was very nice, and moist and all that, but when one makes a rich chocolate cake, one wants it to be bloody rich and chocolatey, doesn't one? 

However, I think I know what the problem may have been...  The original recipe said 150 g chocolate.  Bugger that - 200 g from now on.  And I used pretty cheap cooking chocolate.  Next time it'll be cadbury energy, or whittikers dark ghana, or something with some real chocolate kick.  So, lesson learned - don't skimp on the chocolate when making a chocolate cake.  You'd think I'd have figured that out by now, wouldn't you? 

Oh well, all's well that ends well - the cake was eaten and enjoyed, which is the main thing.  Great cake, but take note of where I went wrong.  :) 

175 g butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
6 eggs, separated
200 g dark chocolate, melted
140 g ground almonds
  1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees celcius. 
  2. Cream butter, sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy.  Beat in egg yolks. 
  3. Melt chocolate slowly, by placing bowl over pot of simmering water.  Fold this and the almonds into the butter mixture. 
  4. In another bowl beat egg whites until soft peaks form.  Fold into cake mixture. 
  5. Pour into greased and lined 20cm springform tin.
  6. Bake for 20 mins then reduce heat to 150 degrees for further 35 minutes, or until form. 
  7. Allow cake to cool in tin before serving dusted with icing sugar and a dollop of yoghurt or whipped cream.