Part cake, part soufflé, here’s a
flourless chocolate cake that’s as light as air. It’s a cake roll, baked in a
sheet pan and then topped with a cocoa cream and rolled up, jelly roll style. I
love the texture of this cake, which gets all its structure from beaten eggs
and chocolate – it’s made with a dozen eggs and 12 ounces of chocolate. The
eggs,
along with a good amount of sugar, are whipped up in a large bowl with a
hand-held mixer. If you have a 5 or 6-quart stand mixer, though, you can use
that; the beaten eggs will just make it to the edge of the bowl. My chocolate
of choice was Guittard 61 percent, one of my favorites, but any high-quality
chocolate will do. The
finished cake is light yet rich; at room temperature
it’s very soft, and when chilled it takes on a slightly fudgy resistance.
Another wonderful thing about this simple cake is that it’s very easy to put
together, though, I must say, it does take a certain amount of bravery to roll
it up and then transfer it to a serving plate. But even
if the cake cracks a
bit, a good dusting of confectioners’ sugar will hide, or distract from, any
blemishes. This recipe comes from Jeanne Kraus, from the May 1999 cover of Chocolatier. Jeanne is now a Pastry Chef
Instructor at Illinois Institute of Art in Chicago, but she gave me this recipe
when she was working at the Hudson Club, also in Chicago. Though the Hudson
Club has since closed, this recipe lives on as a testament to Jeanne Kraus’s considerable
talent.
