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Buongiorno, Bonjour
and Guten Morgen!! Yes, as you may
have guessed I’m off to Europe this summer! In my earlier post on travel books,
I had mentioned that I’m heading to 2 of the destinations covered by those books
– Paris and Venice. I’m doing about half the boot of Italy (northern bit), then
celebrating my birthday in Paris and then off to the hills that are alive with
the sound of music – Austria 🙂
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So
this will be my last post for a while, unless I get a chance to write “from the
road”. Do follow me on Twitter for the latest updates. Since I’m
heading to the ‘city of lights’, I thought I’ll leave you with a tres francais recipe of Gateau
au Chocolat
. This recipe is from David Lebovitz’s book “The
Sweet Life in Paris
”. I hope
you enjoy it. Au revoir for a bit as
I fulfill one of my travel resolutions for this year – to visit a new country and
eat local. Watch out for some delicious posts once I’m back!

This
cake serves 8-10 people.
You’ll
need:
  • 250g
    Dark Chocolate (I used Bourneville Rich Cocoa, which is 44% cocoa. You can go
    as dark or ‘light’ as you wish!)
  • 120g
    Butter (I used salted butter. If you’re using unsalted butter, add a pinch of
    salt to the flour)
  • 65g
    Sugar
  • 4
    Eggs, separated
  • 30g
    Flour

 

How
to:
  • Preheat
    the oven to 180C. Grease a 23-cm springform pan with butter and dust with
    flour.
  • Melt
    the chocolate and butter together in a bain-marie (double boiler). Watch this video for the correct technique.
  • Remove
    from the heat and stir in half the sugar, followed by egg yolks and then the
    flour.
  • Whip
    the egg whites using a hand blender / electric whisk till they form soft peaks.
    Add the remaining sugar and whisk some more till the whites are smooth and hold
    their shape.
  • Fold
    in 1/3rd of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture. Continue with
    the rest of the whites till they are all blended in the chocolate mixture. No
    visible white streaks should remain.
  • Transfer
    to the cake pan and bake for 20-30 minutes, till the cake feels slightly firm
    in the centre. (Please note that this is a rich, dense chocolate-y cake and will
    not rise much.)
  • Cool
    and cut into wedges. Serve warm (ideally). You can store this cake for up to 2
    days in a cool dry place (do not refrigerate, if you can help it.)

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