Medium
12
By Paul Allam and David McGuinness
Published 2009
This is a great cake — it is basically a cooked mousse, it puffs up high during cooking and collapses once removed from the oven to form a dense centre. It’s best eaten within 4 hours of baking, as the top remains crisp during this time, adding another delicious texture to the cake. The beauty of this cake, and any other chocolate products for that matter, is that short of burning them you will end up with an acceptable product even if something goes wrong.
Put the chocolate in a large stainless steel bowl and set over a saucepan of simmering water, making sure the base of the bowl does not touch the water — the bowl must be large enough to hold the whole cake mix. Allow the water in the saucepan to boil for 2 minutes, then turn off the heat and stir the chocolate while it slowly melts.
Put the milk and yoghurt in a saucepan over medium–high heat and bring to the boil. Turn off the heat — you should have a curdled milk mixture.
Put the eggs and the sugar for the eggs in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Whisk the eggs at medium speed for about 10 minutes, or until the mixture is very light and has doubled in volume.
In a very clean bowl, whisk the egg whites to soft peaks, then slowly add the sugar for the whites, whisking until soft peaks form a shiny meringue. Be careful not to overwhisk. Place in the refrigerator.
Whisk the cream until soft peaks form and place in the refrigerator until needed.
You should have ready to fold together the melted chocolate, curdled milk, whipped eggs, meringue, whipped cream and cocoa powder. Pour the curdled milk into the chocolate and use a whisk to mix it in, then add the cocoa and whisk to completely incorporate. Fold in the whipped eggs in three batches, making sure you completely incorporate the first batch before adding more — do not worry too much if you can still see streaks of eggs with the following batches. Lightly fold the meringue into the whipped cream, taking care not to knock out too much air. Fold this into the chocolate mix in three batches, making sure you incorporate the first batch before adding more.
Using a spatula, scoop the cake batter into the prepared tin and tap it twice gently on the bench to even out the mix.
It is best to use a sharp fine-bladed knife to cut this cake. Have a jug of very hot water, dip the knife in, and leave for about 10 seconds to warm the blade through. Dry the knife on a tea towel (dish towel) before slicing. Repeat this process after every slice for a perfectly clean cut.
© 2009 All rights reserved. Published by Murdoch Books.