A bonus recipe week with the Chocolate with Francois group.  Check out the site and bake chocolate decadent desserts with us.

This was such an easy recipe that resulted in a brownie texture like cake. Maybe that was due to the changes I made to the recipe or maybe not.  You have to see for yourself where you can peruse the recipe in full at Julie’s site:  A Little Bit of Everything

The recipe uses only 5 ingredients: Unsalted butter, 60% chocolate (I used milk chocolate)

2 large eggs, sugar, and flour.  It is mixed and baked within an hour.

The changes I made to the recipe were:  1.  I doubled the recipe to make a birthday cake for a friend…

2.  I used 2 sticks (1 cup) of unsalted butter instead of only10 oz* That’s 10 oz for a double recipe.

3.  I used 16.5 oz of Milk chocolate.

4.  Instead of 4 large eggs for a double recipe, I used 4 large eggs plus 1 egg white.

5.  I used 1 1/4 cup of sugar

6.  I used 2 cups of flour and 1 1/2 tsp baking powder (the comments at the Chocolate site was that the cake didn’t reach the height shown in the book. I decided to give my flour a little extra help with the baking powder).

7.  I baked the 2 cakes for 18 minutes at 350 F.  Reduced the heat to 300 F and baked another 18 minutes.  I then allowed the cakes to sit in the oven after turning it off for about 1 hour.

I thought “Oh No” as I looked at the cakes coming out of the oven…

Then I flipped them out of the pans…

Not so bad.  They did sink in the middle a bit. Why? Well, cakes can sink in the middle for a number of reasons:  1.  the oven is not hot enough  2.  too much flour or too wet.  3.  There might be too much baking powder.  Maybe I shouldn’t have added the baking powder? ! 

The result was a thick, brownie textured cake.  It was a little dry but then I didn’t want to produce the somewhat “wet” looking cake pictured in the book on page 177 because I was going to sprinkle it with powdered sugar for Jill and a wetter surface would absorb the sugar.

This cake will freeze well, up to one month.  Make sure to print the recipe from Julie’s site, or get the book your self “Chocolate Epiphany” by Francois Payard.  Easy and good.