Chocolatissimo

This cake is essentially a chocolate mousse cake and is very, very chocolaty. Half of the mousse mixture is baked, while the other half forms the topping. There are people who like chocolate and there are people who are chocolate maniacs. If you are in the first category, you may find this cake a bit too heavy for you. But for the choco maniacs, you will absolutely love this.

My version, not glamorous looking at all but tastes pretty good.

This is how the cake is supposed to look like as it appeared in Ms Su Chan's  book, Cakes & Desserts :



Chocolatissimo from Cakes & Desserts by Su Chan. Doesn't it look pretty?

The recipe comes from Ms Su Chan's book Cakes & Desserts with my notes and observations in red.

Chocolatissimo

Ingredients :

For the base :

- 50g butter

- 250g chocolate, chopped

- 5 eggs, white and yolks separated

- 3/4 tablespoon cocoa powder

- 1/2 teaspoon instant coffee granules dissolved in 1/4 teaspoon water

- 75g walnuts, broken into pieces (I omitted)

- 50g castor (superfine) sugar

- 10g white chocolate, melted and spread onto greaseproof paper with a spoon and chilled (This is for decoration which I omitted)

- 1 teaspoon snow powder (I have no idea what this is and I omitted)

- 100-150g chocolate, grated to decorate (I omitted)

For the Filling :

- 50g unsalted butter

- 350g chocolate, chopped (this is a lot and I wonder is it typo error? I followed anyway)

- 4 eggs, white and yolks separated (please use pasteurized eggs for your safety)

- 1/2 teaspoon instant coffee granules dissolved in 1/4 teaspoon water

- 20g castor (superfine sugar)

Method :

For the base :

- Grease a 22.5cm (9") springform pan and set aside.

- Preheat oven to 150C

- Melt butter and chocolate in a mixing bowl (I melted these by placing bowl over a saucepan of simmering water)

- Add egg yolks, cocoa powder, coffee and combine (I let the chocolate cool a bit first before doing this)

- Fold in walnuts, if using, and set aside.

- Whisk egg whites and sugar until stiff.

- Fold egg white into chocolate mixture and pour into prepared pan.

- Bake for 35-40 minutes.

- Remove from oven and cool on wire rack.

For the filling :

- Melt chocolate and butter in a mixing bowl (as above)

- Add egg yolks and coffee and combine (as above)

- Whisk egg white with sugar in another bowl until stiff.

- Fold egg white into chocolate mixture and pour over cooled base.

- Set aside overnight to allow cake to set in pan (I covered pan with cling film and refrigerated overnight)

- The next day, remove cake from the pan.

- Sprinkle grated chocolate over the top and decorate with white chocolate tags. Dust with snow powder (I skipped this step entirely)

- Slice cake into 10 slices and serve chilled.

This is what I noted from my experience with this cake :

1. I think I overbaked the cake. By the time I checked, 33 minutes had passed. The cake was done and was a bit hard. It would be wise to check at the 25 minute mark.

2. The cake shrank after coming out of the oven. Perhaps, I should have cooled it in the oven?

 

Just out of the oven.

After 30 minutes it shrank.

3. When making the filling, the pasteurised egg whites took forever to stiffen. At first I thought either the mixing bowl or beaters were not clean (oily or tainted with yolks). Then it occurred  to me that the pasteurization must have altered the molecular structure of the egg whites and I kept on going. I used higher speed to beat and I think it took 3 times as long compared to normal egg whites.

4. If I make this cake again, I would line the sides of the pan with baking paper to make it easier to release the cake. I ran a spatula around the cake before releasing the springform pan.

5. After I released the cake (refrigerated overnight), I found it hard to slice. Perhaps this is due to the high chocolate content. I've checked Chocolatissimo recipe on other sites and it calls for 10oz of chocolate which translates to roughly 280g of chocolate for the whole cake. This recipe here in total uses 600g of chocolate which made me think that there is perhaps a typo error in the book. Or perhaps Ms Su Chan intended it to be a very chocolaty experience. In my next attempt, I will reduce the chocolate used.


I like this cake very much especially the filling. There will be another attempt and hopefully the second one would turn out better looking.

Dense chocolaty goodness.