Chocolate Cloud Cake

Well it’s late already…

its been a freezing day

A very simple meditative sensory mangle of flavour and smell that ebbs through the household…

Serve soft warm oozing cake slices with small tipples of more brandy, liqueur, some espresso, or a midnight cup of tea 🫖

Brings warmth to all the corners where the heat has fallen through 🔥

How to:

• line a 20cm cake pan with baking paper and set the oven to 175 degrees Celsius

• melt 250grams of butter slowly - I mean slowly ... none of this double boiler hot water two pot effort, just don't let it heat up noticeably at all ...

• get together 3 x 100gr Lindt chocolate slabs (preferably a 70% cocoa or even more - not less, and don't be snoep - it's war-time ... but the best) - break into shards, and as soon as the butter looks unnoticeably melted just drop the chocolate in

• now don't go stirring this ... just let it be

• btw ... I always buy 4 slabs - because you just know that family members are going to somehow sneak one away to some obscure place where weeks from now you will find some chocolate papers tucked into the side of the couch cushions ...

• then get together 6 X-Large organic eggs - split 4 of them into two bowls, yolks in the one bowl, and egg-white in the other bowl, and add the remaining two whole eggs to the egg yolks (!) don't mess this up now!

• add 125ml (1/2 a cup of sugar - I used yellow sugar) and sprinkle over the egg yolks that has also got the extra two whole eggs added to that bowl!

• add 1-2 tablespoons of Cognac to the eggs and sugar bowl, and then grate orange, naartjie, or lemon zest into the bowl as well

• as a Cognac substitute you can use brandy, vanilla essence, rum, apple cider vinegar. sherry - it's a "moment and mood" add-on... just feel it

• whisk together gently - sure, use your 1000Watt electric bad-ass machine mixer for 10 seconds, I'm old school French, we whisk by hand, build biceps, sip brandy, and ponder on which apron will be suitable apt to wear in the kitchen tomorrow

• now put that bowl down gently and get to the meringue part in the other bowl

• with a tiny wobbly old hand mixer, beat the egg-whites in the egg-white bowl until just fluffy and some peaks form (you stop the machine, switch it off and then only tilt the beaters and see if the egg whites are forming peaks...)

• so when it reaches that apparent stiff-peak stage, put the beater arms attached to the beater back into the bowl, switch back on, choose the medium speed of the little wobbly machine, and whilst beating the egg whites add another 1/2 cup of sugar a bit at a time, imagining spoonful's with a couple of minutes of waiting in between ... after adding spoonful's after a few minutes at a time, you should be getting a stiff glossy meringue mixture with the sugar dissolved

• now

• whisk the butter and chocolate mix slowly by hand to incorporate the butter into the chocolate, add this mixture to your egg-yolk Brandy mixture, whisk a couple of minutes until thick, and take spoonful's of the meringue mix and add to the chocolate bowl

• fold this in gently until well incorporated

• pour this into your lined cake pan, and carefully place in the middle on the middle rack of the oven

• bake for 40 minutes - a cracked edge will form and you will smell the chocolate hanging in the house, the kids will start gathering around the oven, DON'T open the oven until time is up

• remove the cake from the oven - it will collapse after a couple of minutes, which is good and should happen, and it will slowly sink in the center

• once slightly cooled, remove the cake from the pan, open up the baking-paper like a doily, top cake with dollops of cream, sprinkle with toasted almonds, and cut in slices

• serve soft, warm, oozing cake slices with small tipples of more brandy, liqueur, some espresso, or a midnight cup of tea