notwithstanding the fact that there are probably hundreds of classificatory types of chocolate cake, the most useful order I find for organising this unruly subspecies of cake is with the following three categories:
i) flour and cocoa, no chocolate
ii) flour and chocolate, with or without the addition of cocoa
iii) flourless with chocolate
it should be noted that the family has not been seen to include a flourless cake with cocoa but without chocolate (at least by me- this is the kind of chocolate cake I would likely ignore) and that the latter two genera are usually imminently more satisfying than examples from the former, although cake batter made with cocoa is quite nice to eat raw, if you're into that sort of thing.
food phylum aside, a French recipe from the third category seems to have become deservedly popular above many others, it is Reine de Saba or the Queen of Sheba. to trace the literature of this recipe suggests it came to England and Australia through Elizabeth David's French Provincial Cooking, and via Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking to the United States.
in The Age this year Stephanie Alexander published a version close to David's, in which she notes that the original recipe 'gives the chocolate quantity as "one-quarter of a pound". Many cooks have increased that quantity, although I see no need to', which was an immediate incentive for me to defy restraint and boost the chocolate quotient for a slightly richer, denser cake. the recipe usually includes coffee and brandy too, which I substituted entirely for scotch: I tend to keep my coffee and dessert separate, and we've drunk the bar dry of brandy, rum, muscat and most of the liquers.
the special texture of this cake is achieved by two important factors: leaving the centre a little undercooked to preserve the fudgy feel of chocolate, and, at risk of banging on like Delia, knowing when to stop beating the eggwhites. you should have a soft, voluminous white mass, not stiff building material.
finally, I have no suitable answer as to why this cake was named the Queen of Sheba, when à la Reine usually denotes special dishes with chicken or eggs. perhaps it's because somewhere in the Old Testament the Queen supposedly enticed Solomon with the words "I am black and comely..." and that she is, that she is.
my take on Reine de Saba
150g dark chocolate
100g butter
3 eggs
2 tablespoons Scotch whiskey
3/4 cup ground almonds
1/2 cup caster sugar
preheat the oven to 160°c.
melt the chocolate and butter over a gentle heat.
break the egg whites into a clean bowl and place the yolks in a separate mixing bowl.
beat the sugar into the egg yolks until the mixture is pale and creamy, then mix in the whiskey.
add the melted chocolate, stirring well to prevent splitting, then mix in the ground almonds.
butter and line a cake tin* and check the oven temperature.
at the last minute, beat the eggwhites to soft peaks and add to the chocolate batter in three stages to gradually lighten the mixture and preserve the aeration of the final addition.
baking time should correspond to the size of the tin. see note. as the centre should be undercooked it's best to remove the cake when the surface springs back from a light press, before it rises enough to crack. it will sink a little when it cools.
the cake is quite fragile and should be removed carefully. as it's a moist texture anyway there's no harm in allowing it to cool in the tin and turning it out once it's firmed up a little (this is usually ill-advised as condensation would destroy a delicately textured cake such as sponge).
dust with icing sugar.
* this is a fairly small cake. I like deep, fudgy sorts of shapes so I use a small tin designed for the top tier of a wedding cake, about 18cm diameter. this needs about 40 minutes in the oven but for wider, flatter cakes check at about 20 minutes.
