October 27, 2006

Dear Friends,

If baking is scary for you, if time is short, if you've never found a chocolate cake intense and lingering enough for your taste, consider your quandary over. If you can melt chocolate and stir, you can make this cake.

Intense with chocolate, shaded with espresso and cinnamon with lingering, constantly changing aftertastes, and almost creamy when warm, this cake comes from an era long ago. Signora Bimbi was the turn of the 19th Century mistress of Il Frantoio, an olive estate in the heel of the Italian boot, the region of Puglia. Everything about her spoke of elegance, even though she ran an oil-producing estate deep in the countryside.

This cake is very slightly adapted from her scrapbook of the recipes she served at entertainments and family holidays. From what I could tell, the recipe originally came from Naples around 1900. Cinnamon and espresso were prized flavorings not only because they tasted fine with chocolate, but also because they were expensive. This cake was about luxury. Signora Bimbi was a country woman and her scrapbook informed much of my research into the rural history of Puglia.

Serve dusted with powdered sugar, or piled with whipped cream. Sip a lush, sweet wine like Sicily's Moscato Passito di Pantelleria, or California's black muscat, Elysium by Quady with the cake.

Signora Bimbi's Double Dark Chocolate Torta

Copyright 1997 by Lynne Rossetto Kasper. All rights reserved.

Makes one 9-inch single layer cake serving 8, and doubles easily 15 minutes prep time—40 minutes oven time.

Cook to Cook: Break up the last measure of chocolate by removing from its box, but leaving it in its wrapping. Hit with the handle of a knife to shatter the bar into small pieces.

• 7 ounces bittersweet chocolate (two 3.5-ounce bars of Valrhona 71%, Michel Cluizel 67% to 72%, El Rey 70%, Lindt Excellence 70%, Scharffen Berger 70%, Guittard, or Ghirardelli, in that order), broken up
• 3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, broken up
• 1 stick, plus 2 tablespoons (5 ounces) unsalted butter
• 2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/3 cups sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 generous tablespoons instant espresso coffee dissolved in 3 tablespoons very hot water
• 5 large eggs
• 1/3 cup all-purpose unbleached flour (measure by dipping and leveling)
• 3.5- to 4-ounce bar bittersweet chocolate, broken into bite-size pieces

Decoration:

• 1 cup powdered sugar in a sifter, or 1 cup heavy cream, whipped

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Butter and flour a shiny 9-inch springform pan.

2. Put the first quantities of chocolate (bittersweet and unsweetened) and the butter together in a medium-sized microwave safe bowl. Melt for 3 to 4 minutes at medium power. Check by stirring. Chocolate holds it shape when microwaved. Or melt in a heatproof bowl over simmering water.

3. With a whisk, beat together the cinnamon, vanilla, sugar, salt, espresso, and eggs until creamy. Stir in the flour to thoroughly blend. Then blend in the chocolate/butter mixture until smooth. Stir in the broken-up chocolate bar. Pour the batter into the springform pan.

4. Bake 25 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out with a few generous, moist streaks of chocolate. Cool on a rack 30 minutes (you could then wrap the cake and chill it up to 2 days). Serve warm, or at room temperature.

5. To do white lace on the cake, cover it with a doily and sift the powdered sugar over it.

LYNNE'S TIPS

• If a recipe calls for a 70% chocolate, don't assume one with a higher percentage of cocoa solids will be even better. Premium chocolates with high percentages of cocoa solids all behave differently and you can't necessarily interchange them. Higher percentages do mean more cocoa mass and less sugar, but they also mean more cocoa butter, which will give you a different sort of melt. For instance, if you used an 85% or 90% chocolate for the pieces the recipe has you stir in at the end, aside from being too bitter in flavor, they would melt quickly and you would lose the fudgy semi-melted chocolate effect you want in the cake.
  
  
• Pans make a difference. Use a springform pan with a shiny finish rather than a dark one to avoid excessive browning on the bottom and sides of the cake.
  
  
• Don't over bake the cake or you'll lose the creamy quality from the softly melted bittersweet chocolate. Test with a knife as directed in Step 4.
  
  
• Strange as it seems, a dollop of unsweetened whipped cream actually gives balance to rich, intensely flavored sweets like this cake.
  
  
• Many supermarkets now carry premium chocolates labeled with their percentages of cocoa solids. Take home a couple of brands and taste. Sound, well made chocolate melts to silk on the tongue with no grittiness and has a lingering, pleasing aftertaste. It should taste luxurious and luscious. Two online sources are chocosphere.com and worldwidechocolate.com.

Have a great week,

Lynne