Chocolate cake

Today I’m making a chocolate cake to bring to work as it is my last day working in the recovery at Bankstown hospital. A funny little cultural difference between Denmark where I grew up and Australia is that in Denmark you bring cake to work for your birthday, last day of work or before a vacation, her your co-workers bring the cake. I have however decided to stick with Danish way of doing things so I’m down to going through my recipes to find the perfect cake that will have just that touch of quality that I try to make a trade mark of my cooking. I ended up with a heavy dessert cake taken from one Heibergs dessert books. It is quite simple in that it has only few ingredients but it is not easy to make until you master the very important trick of melting chocolate with the butter in a bowl emerged in water, with out getting as much as one drop of water into the chocolate. If water gets in with the chocolate it will get all lumpy! The trick to getting a good chocolate cake, is as with all cooking to use good ingredients and so with the chocolate cake aim for high a content of cocoa butter. Usually I go for an 85%, it may be a bit bitter on its own, but once it is in the cake it gives it that rich chocolaty taste we aim for also if the health-food gurus such as Niels Ehlers are to be believed fare the healthiest.

So here we go:

Chocolate explosion
Ingredients:200 g dark chocolate (IE 85% cocoa Lindt )
100 g unsalted butter
3 tablespoon flouer
ca.5 egg yoke ca. 5 egg wide
110 g sugar

what to do:
Brake the chocolate in little pieces and chop the butter. Combine it is a bowel and melt it in a water bath together. DO NOT GET WATER IN MIXTURE!!!!! AND DO NOT OVER HEAT! Temperature is never to exceed 50 C.

Whip the egg whites until they are stiff and airy; add sugar little by little as you go along. Combine the egg yokes – carefully into the chocolate. After that you add the egg wide and finally you add the flouer.

The unusual part!
Divide the chocolate dough in to. Half you set aside to use for icing and the rest you pour into muffin forms which you might have coated with butter and sugar if you so desire. Bake the cakes 7-8 minutes @ 185 C – should be very moist when done! Add the icing on top in a decorative looking way. Might be served with wiped cream with a bit of cinnamon or fresh berries or as I prefer, with sour cream!.