Precipitously, spring has fallen from the sky, essentially overnight, and with an explosion of yellows and purples in the garden (colours in nature seem to follow an innate order: first purples and yellows, then pinks, whites, blues, etc.). And I can’t help but be happy and content, and laughing more than I used to, and the other day I decided, after a long streak of not feeling like cooking or baking, to bake a cake.
A simple cake to start with, nothing fancy, but really, really delicious. A comforting, reconciliatory cake.
I did have a bit of trouble and needed all my persuasive skills to get it out of its mould, yet no harm done when you can cover up the mess with camellia flowers from the conservatory. The reds are my favourites.
It tasted exactly the way I intended it to taste, and it went down splendidly with a cup of tea in the sun.
What you’ll need
- 100g dark chocolate
- 4 eggs
- 180g sugar
- The seeds of half a vanilla seed pot
- A pinch of fleur de sel
- 200g butter, melted in a pan
- 200g ground hazelnuts
- 100g flour
- Half a packet of baking powder
How you bake it
Melt the chocolate in the bain marie, heat the butter in a separate pan at a low temperature. While the chocolate is melting, separate the eggs and beat the yolks with the sugar and the vanilla seeds for at least 5 minutes. Slowly add the butter and fold in hazelnuts, flour and baking powder.
Pre-heat the oven to 180°C no fan.
Beat the egg whites with a pinch of fleur de sel and gently fold in.
Butter a pretty bundt mould and dust with flour. Add half of the batter. Add the melted chocolate to the rest of the batter and mix, then transfer to the mould. With the help of a fork, gently lift the batter up in the mould and swirl, this will give it the typical marble cake pattern once it’s baked.
Bake for 50 minutes. Once it’s done, let sit in the turned off oven and the door open for another 15 minutes. Then let cool at room temperature. In order to help the cake come out of the mould, tip whenever you can touch it without burning your hands.
Arrange on a nice plate.
How you eat it
Ideally, share it with good people, for shared things taste even better. If possible in the sun. Coffee or tea. And happiness.
Les Poissonchats 