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Chocolate Cakes
3 eggs 1/4 cup butter 1/2 cup sugar 3 squares unsweetened chocolate 1 cup stale bread crumbs 3 tablespoons flour Beat eggs until light. Cream the butter, add sugar, combine mixtures, then add chocolate melted, bread crumbs and flour. Spread mixture in a shallow buttered pan and bake in a slow oven. Shape with a tiny biscuit-cutter and put together in pairs with White Mountain Cream between and on top.
These are small sandwich cakes rather than a layer cake: a dense, flourless-leaning chocolate sheet, baked slowly, cut into rounds and filled with boiled icing. The batter has no chemical leavening at all, so the beaten eggs are the only lift.
- Beat the eggs properly"until light" means whole eggs whipped several minutes until pale and thick; the recipe gives no volume target. That aeration is the only rise, so combine the melted chocolate, crumbs and flour without knocking the air out, or the cakes bake flat and heavy.
- Squares of chocolateA square of unsweetened chocolate is 1 ounce, so 3 squares is 3 oz (about 85 g). Use 100% cacao baking chocolate, not bittersweet, or the cakes will be cloying against the icing.
- Slow ovenIn period usage roughly 250 to 325F; around 300F suits this batter. A shallow pan will want something near 20 to 25 minutes; pull it when the surface is set and dry to the touch but the centre still yields slightly.
- Stale bread crumbsSoft crumbs from day-old white bread, torn or rubbed fine, not dried packaged crumbs. Measure them lightly heaped; packed crumbs will soak up too much and turn the cakes dry.
- Pan depth"shallow" here means a thin sheet, about half an inch. This quantity spreads to roughly 3/8 inch in a 9x13 or quarter-sheet pan; a 9-inch square gives closer to half an inch. Cakes much thicker than that will not cut cleanly with a small round cutter.
- CuttingLet the sheet cool completely in the pan before cutting, and dip the cutter in hot water between rounds. Warm chocolate crumb tears.
- White Mountain CreamA boiled frosting: sugar syrup boiled to the thread or soft-ball range (roughly 230 to 240F) poured in a thread onto stiffly beaten egg whites and beaten until it holds. It stiffens on standing, so fill and top the pairs while it is still spreadable.
- YieldExpect about 18 to 24 finished pairs from a 9x13 pan with a 1 1/2-inch cutter, depending on how much trim you accept. The scraps are worth keeping for a trifle.