From the bestselling, James Beard Award-winning food writer and author of Gâteau, Aleksandra Crapanzano, comes a beautifully illustrated cookbook that celebrates the French love affair with chocolate, featuring over 100 elegant recipes: Chocolat, Parisian Desserts and Other Delights. Here is a preview with one of her recipes featuring Valrhona chocolate: the Spiked Mocha Loaf Cake.
Easy
20min
50min
Makes 1 loaf cake
An Original Recipe by Aleksandra Crapanzano, from her new book "CHOCOLAT Parisian Desserts and Other Delights"
Utensils:
- Loaf pan
- Silicone spatula
To make this recipe
1. Spiked Mocha Loaf
Ingredients :
- 200 grams (14 tablespoons) Unsalted butter, preferably European
- 200 grams (7 ounces) Caraibe Dark chocolate, roughly chopped
- 3 large eggs, at room temperature
- 175 grams (1,5 cups) cake flour or all-purpose flour
- 200 grams (1 cup) granulated sugar
- 45 grams (1/2 cup) Dutch-processed cocoa powder
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 cup piping-hot coffee
- 2 tablespoons dark rum
Note: For those with a penchant for Turkish coffee, omit the rum and add half a teaspoon of freshlyground cardamom seeds to the dry ingredients.
Prep time: 20 min.
Cook time: 50 min.
Steps:
- Preheat the oven to 340°F.
- Line a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan with parchment or butter it and dust with cocoa.
- Melt the butter and chocolate in a bain-marie or in a microwave and stir until smooth.
- Remove from heat and allow to cool to warm room temperature, then whisk in the eggs.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, cocoa and baking powder together to combine.
- Add the chocolate mixture and stir in with a silicone spatula.
- Add the hot coffee in three additions, stirring after each one. Stir in the rum.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 50–60 minutes, until a knife inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
- Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then remove it to a cooling rack to cool completely.
"Paris has gone deep into barista culture, and while I’ll always be a café person at heart, the promise of a good dark brew on the way to my favorite café is my idea of a compromise. Because, let’s face it, Parisian café coffee has never been good. Even at Café Flore, where the hot chocolate is deep and wondrous and the scrambled eggs are tender and creamy and the tea is lovingly sourced from Mariage Frères and the cocktails are classic, the coffee is, and has been for as long as anyone can remember, terrible. I say this with great affection, as the constancy of it offers a nostalgic comfort that is now, perhaps, the point. This particular gâteau, on the other hand, is a barista cake — intensely flavored and very much meant for coffee drinkers. Dollops of crème fraîche will dress this cake for dinner"
