4 November 2019
Recipe from The Perfect Cake, America's Test Kitchen, 2018, p. 190; also available online from Cook's Country, April 2016.
I have made a Test Kitchen recipe for flourless chocolate cake several times. The recipe has just a few ingredients and we enjoyed it both times I made it. So I figured a newer recipe could provide a better result, the Test Kitchen having learned some lessons since it published the first recipe and improved on it. The best way to find out is to make the cake.
The ingredient list in this recipe is longer than the 3 or 4 ingredients in the older recipe, but it is still a fairly easy cake to make. Chocolate and butter were melted together in the microwave oven and set aside to cool. In a large bowl the other ingredients were whisked together: eggs, sugar, water, cornstarch, vanilla, espresso powder, and salt. The cooled chocolate mixture was whisked into the ingredients in the large bowl. The batter was strained into a 9" springform pan and baked at 275° for about 45 minutes. After cooling on the counter it was stored in the refrigerator and eaten the next day. Total time from start to fridge was 2 hours 25 minutes, mostly hands off.
I had high hopes for this cake but ended up being disappointed by it. The coffee flavor was too strong for my tastes. This was not surprising as I often find I like chocolate baked good better with less espresso powder than in the recipe. But I also found it lacked both sweetness and chocolate flavor. Judging from my brief comments on the older recipe, we liked it better. No regrets, though, you need to try new things sometimes to find it if they are better than the old things. This time they were not.
No comments:
Post a Comment