Chocolate Decadence

Recipe from Anna Williams



picture of chocolate decadence cake

Here's a recipe by Anna Williams, inspired by & replicating the Chocolate Decadence (flourless!) cake served at Narsai's, the celebrated Kensington restaurant that chef Narsai M. David operated from 1972 to 1986:

Yields:

10 to 12 servings

Time Required:

Ingredients:

For batter:

For sauce:

Accompaniment:

Preparation:

Step 1: Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). Butter a 9" by 2" round cake pan, and line bottom with a round of wax paper. Butter paper, and dust pan with flour, knocking out excess.

Make batter:

Step 2: Melt chocolate and butter in a metal bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water, whisking until smooth.

Step 3: Cool slightly.

Step 4: Beat together eggs and sugar with an electric mixer until pale yellow, thick, and a ribbon forms when beaters are lifted, about 4 mins. with a standing mixer or 8 mins. with a handheld. Fold ¼ of egg mixture into chocolate mixture to lighten, then gently fold in remaining egg mixture.

Step 5: Pour batter into cake pan, and rap pan sharply on counter, to eliminate air bubbles. Put cake pan in a hot water bath, and place in middle of oven. Bake 45 mins. (Top will be set, but a tester will not come out clean.)

Step 6: Remove cake from water bath and cool completely in pan on a rack. Run a thin knife around edge of cake, and chill, covered, at least 4 hours and up to 12.

Make sauce:

Step 7: Purée raspberries with sugar in a food processor or blender, then force through a fine sieve into a bowl. Chill until ready to serve.

Remove cake from pan:

Step 8: Put cake pan directly on a burner, at very low heat. Move pan around on burner, to warm bottom, about 30 seconds, then shake pan to loosen cake. Invert cake onto a rack. Remove wax paper and invert cake onto a serving plate.

Step 9: Bring cake to room temperature. Serve with sauce and whipped cream.

Cook's Notes:

Don't despair if the cake stubbornly refuses to come out of the pan. You may need to help it along, by prying it out gently with the tip of a paring knife.

This cake is better if made a day ahead. Both cake and sauce keep 2 days, covered and chilled.


1 Cups, tablespoons, teaspoons, and fl. oz. are as defined in US Customary Units, not to be confused with differing British imperial, "legal", "coffee", Commonwealth of Nations, Canadian, Latin American, Japanese, Russian, or Dutch definitions — further proof that everyone needs the metric system.

2 This insistence on "large" eggs in recipes is usually silly, and is here, too. If you have medium eggs, fine.



Collected and re-published at http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/recipes/chocolate-decadence.html by Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> on Mar. 19, 2024. Individual recipes are free from copyright. Share and enjoy!

(If I have any copyright title in my own very minor contributions to this page — not my intention — they were created in 2024 by Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> and licensed for use under CC0. I have thereby waived all copyright, compilation copyright, and related or neighbouring rights to this work. This work is published from: United States of America.)

Grateful thanks to Anna Williams, and to the chefs at Narsai's.

Taken from: https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/chocolate-decadence-103084, mirrored at https://archive.ph/TRYTs. (That page's copyright notice is toothless as to the recipe itself, having force concerning only non-recipe elements such as photos.)

Image was placed into the public domain on 27 August 2007 by CdnStar~commonswiki. My thanks for CdnStar~commonswiki's generosity.