Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 2 (211 page)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees for Step 2. Prepare cake pan by smearing butter inside, fitting round of paper in bottom, buttering that, rolling flour around interior and knocking out excess. Break chocolate into saucepan, add the milk, and stir with a wooden spoon over moderate heat until chocolate is melted and smooth. Remove any icing or filling from leftover cake, and shred cake into crumbs; stir into the chocolate mixture.

An electric mixer with small bowl

4 egg whites at room temperature

Pinch of salt

¼ tsp cream of tartar

3 Tb sugar

Being sure beaters and bowl are clean and dry, beat egg whites at moderate speed until foamy; beat in salt and cream of tartar. Gradually increase speed to fast, beating until soft peaks are formed. A tablespoon at a time, and beating 30 seconds between spoonfuls,
beat in the sugar, and continue beating at high speed until stiff peaks are formed. Proceed immediately to next paragraph.

The mixer with large bowl

4 egg yolks

½ cup sugar

2 Tb dark rum or orange liqueur

The tepid chocolate mixture from first paragraph

Optional: 3 to 4 Tb soft butter

With the same electric mixer blades but in a different bowl, proceed at once to the egg yolks. Gradually beat the sugar into the yolks and continue beating until mixture is thick and pale yellow, and a bit lifted in the beaters falls back on the surface in a slowly dissolving ribbon. Beat in the rum or liqueur and the chocolate mixture, continuing for 30 seconds or so to make sure the batter is smooth and free of lumps. Beat in optional butter if you are using sponge cake or ladyfingers, and proceed immediately to next paragraph.

A rubber spatula

The beaten egg whites

The prepared cake pan

With spatula, stir ¼ of the egg whites into the batter to lighten it; scoop the rest of the egg whites on top and delicately fold in. Turn batter into prepared pan, tilt pan in all directions to run batter up to rim all around. (Pan will be ⅔ to ¾ filled.) Set at once in middle level of preheated oven.

2)
Baking—oven has been preheated to 350 degrees

Bake for about an hour. Cake is done when it has risen almost to rim of pan; the top will crack, and a cake tester or skewer plunged down through a crack in the center will come out dry, with a few crumbs but no liquid adhering. Let cake cool for 20 minutes. To unmold, run a thin flexible knife around cake; turn a serving plate upside down over pan, reverse the two, and give a sharp downward jerk to unmold cake onto plate.

(*)
AHEAD-OF-TIME NOTE
: If you are not serving or icing immediately, let cake cool; wipe out cake pan and reverse over cake, then slip it into a plastic bag and refrigerate. Cake will keep 3 or 4 days, or may be frozen for a month or more.

To serve as a dessert

Slice into 2 or 3 layers, fill and ice with
crème Chantilly
(lightly beaten and sweetened cream), or the
Chantilly meringuée
, and pass chocolate sauce separately.

To serve as a cake

Slice into 2 or 3 layers, and follow any of the suggestions in the list of
frostings and fillings
, such as butter-cream filling with chocolate icing.

LE GLORIEUX

[A Very Rich, Very Light Chocolate Cake]

This dark and delicious cousin of the
Quatre Quarts
is made with cornstarch instead of flour, but again the secret of a full, light cake lies in how rapidly and delicately you fold the starch and finally the chocolate and butter into the egg mixture. Here we have suggested a two-layer cake: the batter is divided and cooked in two pans; one still-warm cake goes upon the other with chocolate filling in between. You may frost the cake with more chocolate, with white meringue icing, or, if it is a dessert, with whipped cream.

For two 4-cup pans or one 8-cup pan, serving 12 to 16

1)
Preliminaries

7 ounces semisweet baking chocolate

2 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate

¼ cup orange liqueur

The grated rind of 1 orange

2 four-cup cake pans (such as round ones 8 by 1½ inches), bottom lined with waxed paper, pans buttered and floured

2 sticks butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and place rack in middle level. Break up chocolate and melt with orange liqueur and orange rind over hot water (see
directions
); it must be perfectly smooth and creamy. Cut the butter into ¼-inch slices and beat piece by piece into the chocolate, again making sure mixture is perfectly smooth and creamy. (A hand-held electric mixer is useful here.) If consistency is too liquid—it should be like a heavy mayonnaise—beat over iced water. Set aside.

2)
The cake batter

5 “large” eggs

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

An electric mixer and 3- to 4-quart bowl (be sure mixer blades and bowl are clean and dry)

Beat the eggs and sugar for a moment at low speed to blend, then increase speed to high, add vanilla, and beat several minutes (7 to 8 with a hand-held machine) until mixture is pale, fluffy, doubled in volume, and holds in soft peaks.