Friday, April 25, 2008

Pesachdik birthday cake

Shoshie was born at the end of Pesach in 1992, and every few years, her birthday will fall during the holiday. This is a burden because she likes her birthday cake. And, of course, traditional birthday cake is not pesachdik. While we are not as observant as we could be, cake in the house during Pesach just doesn't feel right.

Shoshie made it clear, Pesach or not, she wanted a birthday cake on this, her 16th birthday, or she would be unhappy. And Shoshie does not suffer in silence. Or alone.

The thought of pesachdik cake brought up of visions of this
Not pleasant. The pictures on the boxes are misleading. The cakes tend to taste more like the box than any honey or chocolate cake you can imagine.

We told her that we could take these
stack them and pour chocolate sauce over the top for a chocolate delight. She was not amused.

I shared my quandary with friends last Monday and C told me about a flourless cake on, ironically, the King Arthur flour website. She had not made the cake but the picture wasmouth-watering.

So I tried it.
Not as pretty as the website picture but the taste was as good as you might imagine. I decorated it with a mint sprig and served it with mint chip ice cream. Yummy.

Bis a hunert und zwansig yohr, sweetie. PRM

2 comments:

Ruskin said...

That looks amazing. My favourite chocolate cake happens to be flourless too:
SACHERTORTE - Serves at least 8
Ingredients:
200g Excellent Quality Dark Chocolate
1 1/2 Teaspoons Ground Coffee (freshly ground if possible)
6 Eggs (5 separated)
150g Ground Almonds (
310g Granulated Sugar (not caster)
6 Tablespoons Apricot Jam
Icing:
100g Excellent Quality Dark Chocolate
40g Unsalted Butter
METHOD:
Preheat oven to 180c.
Butter and line a 9" Springform Tin (I actually used an 8" tin because that's all I have but it didn't effect the cake).
Gently melt the 200g chocolate in a double boiler.
In a large bowl, whisk the 5 egg yolks and remaining whole egg with the sugar until pale and fluffy, like homemade mayonnaise.
In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiffly peaking.
Add the almonds, molten chocolate and ground coffee to the egg yolk mix and combine well.
Gently but firmly fold in the whipped egg whites until throughly combined.
Pour into the cake tin and bake for about an hour (it may be done sooner). Halfway through cooking or when the top has set, cover with some foil. This cake burns easily because of the egg whites.
When cooked, remove from the oven (the top may crack or sink, again due to the high egg content). Don't worry because you can always do as I did - turn it upside down!
Leave to cool on a rack.
Once cool you can begin the icing. Melt the Apricot Jam in a small saucepan over a gentle heat.
Unmould the cake, and decide which side up you are going to ice it. Brush over the now liquid Apricot Jam thickly over the top and sides. This is not merely going to help the icing stick but will be an important and surprising layer of the cake.
In a double boiler, melt the 100g chocolate. Once liquified, add the butter and stir until melted. It might look as if it's going to seize up but keep stirring over the gently heat and it will become runny, like double cream.
Pour over the cake, spreading fairly quickly over the top and sides until it is coated all over. With the back of a spoon, make a circular pattern.Leave for a week or a day until you cut it!

Ruth in NC said...

Sounds delicious, Lorna. Thanks for the recipe. PRM