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Praline Cake (D, KLP, TNT)
Source: Wizo book
Serves: Many

250g (8 oz.) butter
6 egg yolks
220g (about 7 oz.) bittersweet chocolate
1/2 cup coffee
2 tbsp. Cognac or similar (use KLP in Passover)
2 tbsp. bread crunch or matzo meal
6 egg whites beaten stiff
6 tbsp. confectioners' sugar

Melt together over steam or in a bain-marie butter, egg yolks, sugar, chocolate, coffee and Cognac. Don't use direct heat.

When all the ingredients are melted, remove from heat and add the matzo meal. Stir well.

Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold carefully into the chocolate mixture.

Grease and flour (or dust with matzo meal) 8" or 10" springform pan.

Put a little more than a third of the mousse in the pan and bake in high oven for about 20 or 30 minutes, or until baked.

Put the rest of the mousse in the freezer, but don't freeze (dough should be cold).

When the baked dough is cool, put the refrigerated dough on the baked dough in the pan. Put in refrigerator. Serve cold - slice small slices since cake is very rich.

Poster's Notes:
Brian Mailman, Z'L says: This is a keeper! At first I was a bit concerned because I thought the yolk:white ratio wasn't right, and then I became VERY concerned because the chocolate mixture was extremely fluid and didn't want to fold well into the whites (I wound up folding about 1/4 of the stiffly-beaten whites into the mixture to firm it a bit before folding the batter into the whites).

I used coffee brewed about double strength. I wanted to highlight the "deepness" of the chocolate so I only used 2 tbsp. sugar in the mousse.

Next time, I will make this a true "praline" cake (don't know why the title since this doesn't have any nuts in it) but I will be grinding some pecans or something into a meal and dusting the greased sprinform pan with it. When cooled, the cake shrank away from the pan sides, leaving a dusting of the matzo meal which I left for a more "organic" look.

I changed the ratio of cake:mousse to 1:1 instead of .3:.66.

I baked it at 350°F for 20 minutes and it was done... I could tell because suddenly my kitchen filled with coffee-chocolate aromas and I remembered my childhood growing up about 2 miles from a Nestle factory :)

The cake did NOT rise much, but did sink a bit to form a slight ridge--this made a nice border to hold the mousse.

I was extremely pleased to find out the mousse firmed up in the fridge after all; I'd been prepared to make another one with different ratios of whites:yolks and liquids:solids. In fact, the mousse was even a bit difficult to handle - it was so firm it was tearing the cake top as I was spreading it.

I took the chocolate bar and made some bark/shavings with a vegetable peeler to sprinkle on top, and powdered sugar sprinkled on that.

It was quite a hit... each "type" of chocolate gave a different texture and taste. Marianne K. is quite right about a little goes a long way! I got 15 slices out of an 8" springform pan and that was more than enough; several people actually felt they needed to share their puny piece.

All in all, easy-sneezy but elegant, and while results did look "professional" was NOT particularly an ostentatious and pretentious fantasia as some of these things tend to be. The cake was moist enough not to need whipped cream or anything else other than the simple decoration I made.

I might make this next Tu B'Shevat, using the nuts as I said and apricot brandy (in which case I will add NO sugar).

Posted by Marianne Kaufmann

Nutritional Info Per Serving: N/A