From Green & Black’s Chocolate Recipes
Serves 6
Ingredients:
Torte:
25gm plain flour
5 tsp cocoa powder
75gm dark chocolate, minimum 60% cocoa solids, broken into pieces
25gm unsalted butter
5 tsp double cream
4 egg whites
3 egg yolks
3 tbsp caster sugar
250gm fresh blueberries or raspberries
125ml whipping cream, to serve
Icing:
100gm dark chocolate, minimum 60% cocoa solids, broken into pieces
50gm unsalted butter
3 tbsp double cream
1 tsp icing sugar
Method:
Preheat the oven to 140C. Butter and line the cake tin (18-20cm, 6cm deep) with greaseproof paper.
1.Sift together the flour and cocoa and set aside.
2.Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl suspended over barely simmering water. Remove from heat, add the butter and the cream, and stir well until the mixture is quite liquid.
3.Whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form, add the sugar and continue to whisk until thick and glossy.
4.Beat together the egg yolks and then gently fold in the flour and cocoa mixture. Add the melted chocolate and mix well. Spoon a few dollops of egg white into mixture, stir, then gently fold in the remainder of the egg whites.
5.Gently pour half the mixture into the prepared cake tin, dot half the berries evenly over it, then pour the rest of the mixture on top of the berries.
6.Bake for 40-50 mins, until a skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool in the tin for 5 mins and unmould on to a wire rack to cool.
7.To make the icing, melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl suspended over a saucepan of barely simmering water. Remove from the heat, stir in the butter, cream and icing sugar. Immediately pour over the cake to coat it completely, smoothing the icing using a palette knife. Leave for 1 hour to harden.
8.Serve with whipped cream and the remaining berries.
Hint:
Do not refrigerate this cake once you have iced it as the icing will lose its shine and become dull and lifeless.
La Femme Version
Had a bit of a nightmare with this recipe but thankfully it turned out pretty well and no one was the wiser. I had used frozen berries which were of course wetter in texture than fresh berries, I then compounded this error by putting ALL the berries into the cake rather than only half of them before pouring over the rest of the mixture. Although the top of the cake was clearly cooked it was pretty wobbly and wet within. I rescued it from the oven when I felt it was just about to burn, but by the time it had cooled it was a nicely damp chocolate mousse cake that tasted divine!
Food & Wine Matching
I thought that this would be great with the reds on the Bordeaux Grape Varities lesson, the addition of the berries to the chocolate just worked wonderfully well….yum!
Le Vin:
Chateau Tour Guillotin, (Merlot/Cabernet Franc/Cabernet Sauvignon), Puisseguin Saint-Emilion AOC, France, 2011, MYR119