A KD Reader Valentine: Chocolate Nemesis

Not Your Chocolate Covered Strawberry

Now is not the time for a low-fat yogurt  dessert.  Now is the time to celebrate something lush and a little depraved with someone you adore.  Truth be told, I have loved eating this all by my lonesome. 

I have made this dessert for years, especially for people who say they are confirmed chocoholics. It never fails to stop them dead in their tracks. As with anything you put in your mouth, the quality of ingredients is all important.  I have made it with cheap chocolate and top quality ones. And, unlike brownies, which are so dependable with just about any level of ingredient, this deserves more attention to high-caliber content detail. Because this “cake” is so simple, it is worth the expenditure of funds to get the good stuff. As to the intensity of the cocoa solids in the chocolate you choose, I would stop at 70%. But I would not use less than 62%.  I have made this with Valrhona, Cluizel and Amedei bittersweet varieties. All terrific.

The Best Chocolate Cake Ever

I got the recipe from the first cookbook I purchased from the River Café in London.  Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers, the co-founders of this unique restaurant on the Thames, found this recipe when they were struggling to open their dream eatery. Reading through their recent anniversary cookbook (River Cafe just celebrated its 30th year), I discovered how unique they were in running this Italian restaurant. Neither of them had any formal training in professional cooking. One was the British wife of an artist (who created the wire signature sign for the restaurant), the other an American wife of a prominent architect. They started out making sandwiches and were permitted to sell them only to the working people in the immediate Hammersmith warehouse area. Yes, they had help and connections, but I have eaten in plenty of bad restaurants where the owners had oodles of  cash and a rolodex of famous peeps, and the food was still terrible.  This is not the only recipe from their books that I have made repeatedly. But I do concur with their non-hyperbolic description: Nemesis is the best chocolate cake ever.

One Size Does Not Fit All                                                                                       

So on this Valentine’s Day, I give you Gray and Rogers’s original version and their later more petite model from their cookbook Easy. For either, it is important to have the eggs and sugar whipped up to a soft whipped cream consistency.  You must put a parchment liner on the interior base of the cake pan. You can use a slightly smaller pan than indicated in each recipe, which will create a higher cake. I always use caster sugar (my favorite brand is from India Tree).Putting a towel in the water bath keeps the pan from jostling around.  I also heat the water in the pan so that the filled cake pan goes directly into hot water.The cake will pull away from the sides as it cools in the water bath,  and it is then easy to flip over onto a serving plate. You can freeze it whole or in portions, but the cake must come to complete room temperature for serving. It can also be refrigerated for a few days, but again, room temperature is a must for serving. 

When the roses have wilted, you will still have a few slices of this irresistible cake.  You can lighten the effect with a small tasteful dollop of whipped cream And a few fresh raspberries offer a bit of a distraction on your plate. If someone suggests that it might be seriously calorie laden, you may console that person that it is, after all, gluten free.