BRUNO’S CHOCOLATE CAKE
Grandma often cooks with Lucy, and they’ve been making this cake for years thanks to Bruno, an amazing neighbor of Uncle Simon in France. Bruno is legally blind but he works faster in the kitchen than most professionals. This recipe of his is wonderfully rich and takes only 15 minutes to bake.
Serves 8-10
Butter for the pan
18 ½ oz/550 g dark chocolate, chopped
6 eggs
1 cup/125 g confectioners’ sugar
1 cup/125 g flour
9-inch/22-cm cake pan
1. Heat the oven to 180˚C/350˚F and set a shelf in the center. Butter the cake pan, line with parchment paper and butter the paper. To melt the chocolate, spread it on a heatproof pie plate and set it over a pan of steaming but not boiling water. Heat until the chocolate is melted, 7-10 minutes, then stir it until smooth. Leave it to cool to cool 5 minutes or until tepid.
2. For the cake: In a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the eggs until frothy. Sift in the confectioners’ sugar and whisk until the mixture lightens and thickens slightly, 3-5 minutes. With a metal spoon, stir in the flour, followed by the melted chocolate, the batter will thicken slightly.
3. Pour the batter into the cake pan and bake until a crust forms on top, 14-15 minutes. Do not be surprised by the short baking time, it is correct, the cake will be firm on the outside and soft in the center when cool. Take the cake from the oven and leave it at least an hour before you slide it out of the pan for serving. Loosely wrapped, the cake can be kept at room temperature for up to a day, but if stored for too long it will lose its attractive soft center.
4. (Optional) To decorate: cut identical pieces of parchment paper, and lay them on the cake equally spaced – if they are not laying flat, just moisten with a damp cloth. Starting with coco powder heavily dust covering the cake. Gently remove the parchment paper and discard. Then turn the cake by 45 degrees and repeat the same process with confectioners’ sugar. This will then leave the cake with an attractive lattice design.