I’m a chef, not a baker. While I have never served a sub-par dessert at an dinner party, the events leading up to the perfectly plated final course are often less graceful that the finished product. Take this cake for example: it was not the dessert planned for the elegant party of 10 I catered in Sausalito last December. The dessert on the menu was actually a chocolate tart. Based on the frantic poll I took that day, I’m guessing about half of you reading this are thinking is there a difference? While the other half are worried about what is going to happen next.
What happens next is that the tart crust failed. Miserably. I couldn’t bring myself to try and recreate it, and perused the internet for a simple chocolate dessert that could take the place of the chocolate tart I had planned on serving. (The difference, by the way: tart is a crust + filling, torte is a cake, often dense and rich)
I was delighted to find David Lebovitz’s Chocolate Idiot Cake. Not because I’m an idiot, but because I’m a chef. And in my mind, baking comes about as naturally to chefs as it does to idiots. Maybe even less naturally? At any rate, I needed a chocolate dessert, and decided that the torte would be so delicious, no one would mind that it wasn’t actually a tart. They didn’t, in fact, and were perfectly happy to eat this incredibly rich chocolate masterpiece, which is almost more chocolatey than chocolate itself.
The following recipe is adapted from the above mentioned cake. It came out perfectly, and the only change I made was to substitute coconut palm sugar for cane. And of course I used pastured eggs, grass fed butter, and the best chocolate I could find.
10 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped (use the best you can find!)
7 oz grass fed butter
5 pastured eggs
120 grams coconut palm sugar (a scant 1 C)
butter and cocoa powder for dusting the pan
Preheat your oven to 350°
- Butter a 9 inch springform pan and coat it with cocoa powder. If it’s not 100% water tight, wrap it tightly with aluminum foil about two thirds up the pan.
- In a double boiler, melt the chocolate and butter until smooth, stirring occasionally.
- In a medium bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar until well combined
- Slowly combine the sugar / eggs with the butter / chocolate.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and cover snugly with foil.
- Place in a larger pan or roasting dish and fill that with hot water so that it goes about 1/2 way up the cake pan.
- Bake for 1 hour 15 minutes. It won’t look like a typical cake when it’s done; it won’t be cracked or have risen. It will look like chocolate pudding, but will be just set in the center.
- Lift the cake from the water bath and cool completely on a cooling rack
- Serve thin slices with fresh berries and whipped cream, or coconut cream.
All of the links on zenbelly.com are for information purposes, however some are affiliate links to books, products or services. Any sponsored posts are clearly labelled as being sponsored content. Some ads on this site are served by ad networks and the advertised products are not necessarily recommended by Zenbelly.
Kari Schueler says
What do you think about splitting this up in individual short and wide bell jars and cooking? Do you think it will work? Thanks for the recipe!
zenbellyblog says
I think that’s the best idea I’ve heard all day! The thing about this cake that’s tricky is the water bath (tricky for novice bakers like myself, anyway). I LOVE the idea of individual mason jars, and if you try it, please let me know how it goes! I have a feeling it will be great, and fantastic for presentation. (But maybe try with a half batch to test it, just in case.)
Susy Fry says
OMY goodness!! I have a million things to do or I would be in the kitchen right now baking. I love the canning jar idea… they have some nice square ones, but I suspect that they hold far too much for a single serving of this rich stuff. Not that we couldn’t eat it… I suspect the smallest jelly jar size is probably about right for a serving.
Jennifer says
A million thank yous for this recipe – I’d been looking for a dessert that others would enjoy while still keeping true to my dietary restrictions. This got rave reviews from everyone who tried it – simply decadent.
Moira says
I’m in the middle of making this torte and 200 grams of coconut sugar is about 1 1/2 cups not 1 cup. Wondering which way to go – 200 grams or 1 cup (142 grams) ?
zenbellyblog says
Go with the cup measurement; This is an old recipe so I’ll go back and double check the weights. Sorry about that!