Moëlleux au chocolat et au cafe - SHF XIII

Sugar-high Friday is a tender year old this month - which means I have missed a whopping 11 installments. Suffice to say that Fridays are bad days for posting for me, not only because the week leaves me dire little time to do any cooking (and I can't possibly think a week ahead) and by the time I get to breathe through at the end of the work week, SHF is almost over. No time to find a recipe, do the shopping and whip up something spectacular in a matter of two hours! Especially since desserts are not my forte - merely for lack of trying. By the end of the meal, we're usually so stuffed that we skip this part... so I very seldom prepare any at all. And when I need my daily sugar-fix at around 4 in the afternoon, I tend to indulge in great quality chocolate, which I buy at artisan chocolatiers (Pierre Marcolini, Maison du Chocolat, William Curley, etc) - of course these chocolates are not quite as cheap as your regular purple wrappers, so that one piece needs to go a long way... So whenever the theme is something as ecclectic as, say, tea, I don't usually have a recipe up my sleeve. I have managed to participate the February edition, though, with a baked apple, white chocolate cream and almond glaze mille-feuille, which was something I had wanted to make for ages and was just waiting for such an opportunity to come around. This time, I was helped by the fact that I have taken some time off work and the theme for the month is dark chocolate, which I use a lot. Kelli challenged us to go beyond our staple desserts, though, or at least give something tried and tested a new twist. Though I would have liked to browse cookbooks for hours to find something new, I did not have the leisure... my other engagements (like - hopefully not - being on TV and all) kept me too busy ;-) I was tempted to do a chocolate soufflé, just because SHF coincides with an IMBB this time and the theme is soufflés - kill two birds with one stone, eh? But I have posted a chocolate & wattleseed soufflé before, so I resisted, despite my innate laziness.
So here's a recipe a use a lot - not just because it's delicious and dangerously moreish, also because it's so simple you'll make it once and never forget the recipe! It's a traditional moëlleux to which today I added some crushed coffee beans - only try this at home if you have good quality coffee. Like our Musetti, which I am incredibly lucky to have a constant supply of, as in the UK, this is only available to restaurants and bars... but I tried it once, fell in love and after 3 months of hassling the Italian headquarters, they sent out a decree to their UK branch (a warehouse in the middle of nowhere) that they must deliver coffee to me when they do their round in South-West London, even though I only order 2 or 3 kilos at a time, not 20 or 30+.
But I digress. This cake is great for anyone who needs an indulging, gluten-free dessert... no flour in sight! Serve with any kind of fruit, I often cover the top with a load of raspberries, which are a personal favourite of mine, but the physalis go quite nicely with it, and so would a fig stew or some poached pears... you catch my drift. The coffee beans add a lovely crunch to this smoothest of chocolate cakes, so do try it if you can get your hands on some!

Moëlleux au chocolat - sunken chocolate cake
(yields 8 generous, 12 greedy slices)

200 g good-quality dark chocolate (min. 70% cocoa content - I used a Scharffen-Berger bitter-sweet)
3 tbsp crushed coffee beans (instant coffee, if you prefer)
200 g butter
200 g caster sugar
4 medium eggs

Pre-heat the oven to 170 C.
Break the dark chocolate into a mixing bowl which you place over simmering water. If using couverture or other especially chunky slabs of chocolate, you might want to cut it into pieces to save you time. Melt the chocolate, then remove the bowl from the heat, leaving it to cool slightly. Stir in the crushed coffee beans.
Meanwhile, separate the eggs. Beat the whites until starting to stiffen, add 100 g of sugar and continue beating until the egg whites are glossy and very stiff (they have the right consistency when you can turn the bowl on its head without the eggs coming out).
Now turn to your yolks, beating them with the remaining sugar until pale and creamy. Beat the butter into the chocolate. Whisk in this chocolate mix slowly with the yolk and sugar, then fold in the whites gently.
Butter a non-stick spring-form tin, pour in the chocolate mixture and even out. Put into the oven and bake for 40 minutes. Take out and leave to rest for 10 minutes before serving, still warm, with some fruit or ice cream on the side.

Comments

[chronicler]

Excellent choice with the Scharffenberger! ;-) I used it too. I will have to try this cake, the raspberries would go so well. i can taste it already!

[Niki]

Johanna; I never make my SHF desserts on the Friday, always the Saturday or Sunday, bc the deadline isn't usually until the end of the weekend. I think it was just happening that way, as most people had the same problem as you, and now it seems to be the way it is each month.
The time difference also helps me down here, on a Saturday it's still Friday in the US!

[Paz]

Looks good! What's the flower(?) next to it? Nice looking garnish.

Paz

[johanna]

Hey Paz, it's not a flower, it's a fruit. And a delicisous one, too! They're called Physalis and are a member of the gooseberry family - a tiny orange berry (1 cm in diameter) wrapped loosely in a papery skin. I love to eat them on their own, but they're also great for decoration and their taste goes extremely well with chocolate and coffee, I find.
Check http://2bnthewild.com/plants/H56.htm for more info - and beware, theer are varieties that are toxic, so better try to find them at the market ;-)

[Rachel]

Hi Johanna! Perhaps this is a silly question but where does the butter go in the recipe? I'm guessing together with the melted chocolate? Thanks a lot, I can't wait to try it! :)

[Paz]

A physalis? Oh, wow! Never heard of it or seen it before. I like to learn something new. Thanks for the link. I'll keep my eyes open for it in the supermarket.

Paz

[Lee]

Hi, The recipe sounds delicious! I can't wait to make it. If I were to make this recipe in individual serving dishes, how long should I cook them so the center is still molten? Thanks.

[johanna]

hi lee, sorry for not responding earlier. if making in individual ramekins, i would give them 20-25 minutes. It won't be completely runny, unless you stick some chocolate chunks into the middle, though... let me hear how it works out!

[Sepp]

Des schmeckt sicha supa guat

[Emmanuel]

Can regular table sugar be substituted for the caster sugar?

[johanna]

I am not familiar with table sugar, so can’t give you a straight answer here… Caster sugar is a finely ground crystallized white sugar, we use it in baking because it doesn’t need long to dissolve. If the sugar were coarser, the cake would bake the same, but in recipes with a short baking time or where no cooking is involved or the mixture is very dry, you might end up noticing the sugar crystals.

Muscovado sugar has more flavour than brown sugar, but most recipes would work equally well with brown. Light brown sugar again is more finely ground and lighter in colour than regular, but where this doesn’t have an impact on appearance or texture (ie in a cream or something that isn’t cooked) regular brown is fine.