Okay so I promised we would get past all this Christmas business and so here we go. Over break, I went to Chicago and visited my friend Jeremy, and we did a little cooking, a little baking, you know! (I also visited my cousin and had a spectacular failure of a dessert, which will be coming soon).
We made a delicious vegetable soup which was very yummy perfect for the cold weather. Which brings me to an important broadcast. My wonderful Grandma Snow has started a blog of her own! And… it is all about soups! So, instead of yammering on about the soup I made, I want to point you in her direction – Saucy Soups! I even just did a little guest soup making with her a week ago, so head on over and check it out!! She is just getting started but already has some delicious recipes up.
Now on to what we really like to talk about over here – DESSERT! Enough with all these appetizers and vegetables… we need some good old fashioned Flourless Chocolate Cake. Jeremy had a little expertise in this area so we charged ahead! The cake came out delicious and moist – one of my biggest issues with this kind of cake is how dry it always seems to be in restaurants.
Ours didn’t look too pretty though, when it first came out of the oven – the sides had fallen all in. Also, it had taken waaay longer to cook than the recipe said!
BUT Jeremy saved the day with some homemade strawberry and blackberry coulis and vanilla ice cream. Can we just get a round of applause for his excellent plating skills? Anyways, this was a delicious cake and it was super fun to bake in Jeremy’s beeautiful kitchen!
Flourless Chocolate Cake (a.k.a. Chocolate Cracked Earth)
adapted from Foodnetwork.com
Ingredients
- 1 pound bittersweet chocolate, chopped into small pieces
- 1 stick unsalted butter
- 9 large eggs, separated
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar, plus 1 tablespoon
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9-inch springform pan.
Put the chocolate and butter into the top of a double boiler (or in a heatproof bowl) and heat over (but not touching) about 1 inch of simmering water until melted. Meanwhile, whisk the egg yolks with the sugar in a mixing bowl until light yellow in color. Whisk a little of the chocolate mixture into the egg yolk mixture to temper the eggs – this will keep the eggs from scrambling from the heat of the chocolate – then whisk in the rest of the chocolate mixture.
Beat the egg whites in a mixing bowl until stiff peaks form and fold into the chocolate mixture. Pour into the prepared pan and bake until the cake is set, the top starts to crack and a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out with moist crumbs clinging to it, 20 to 25 minutes. (NOTE: Ours baked more like 45-50 minutes!! So just keep checking it…) Let stand 10 minutes, then remove sides of pan.
Top with ice cream, whipped cream, powdered sugar, or a fruity sauce! YUM!
A Sprinkle In Time 