Orangette's Wedding Cake

On Orangette/Molly Wizenberg: I've been a huge fan due to my old roommate and reading her book just made me a even bigger fan!! Another friend of mine saw her at Gregoire's and emailed her... too bad they didn't become friends, since I would have loved to meet her! I so want to go to DELANCY in seattle!!!

So, after reading A Homemade Life by Orangette's Molly Wizenberg, the first thing I wanted to make was her chocolate cake. Granted it was also her wedding cake and a cake she calls "the winning hearts and minds cake," I had great expectations. The recipe calls for 5 eggs and 1 tablespoon of AP flour something I have never run across with cakes. (I'm a not big cake fan, pie any day over cake, but I was intrigued as I usually am with reading new and different recipes!)

I decided to make this cake for a friend's belated birthday, she had strep and the flu over her birthday weekend and I thought I should add guinea pig to Eunice's attempt at Orangette's cake recipe. 

You are only supposed to use one 8" round cake pan but I was afraid it would puff up too much but then again I wasn't thinking about the ingredients so I put 1/5 of the batter into another cake pan so my sister who kept putting her finger in the batter could try some. BUT remember there wasn't any leavening agents! NOTE: all the pictures are of the cake from extra cake pan (1/5th of the normal size).

The Winning Hearts and Minds Cake
from A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg

Ingredients

• 7 oz bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 1 3/4 sticks unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
• 1 C + 2 T granulated sugar
• 5 eggs
• 1 T unbleached AP flour

Directions 

1. Preheat the oven to 375F

2. Butter a 8" round cake pan, line the bottom with a round of parchment paper and butter the paper (this is important in order to have better ease at removing the cake at the end)

3. Put chocolate and butter in a microwavable bowl, microwave on high for 30 sec at a time, stirring until smooth (OR use a double broiler to do the same)

4. When mixture is smooth, add sugar and incorporate well

5. Set batter aside to cool for 5 min

6. Add the eggs one by one, stirring well after each

7. Add flour and stir to mix well (batter should be dark and silky)

8. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, and bake for about 25 minutes (set the timer to 20 min and check cake every 2 min). The top is lightly crackled and edges are puffed and the center only jiggles VERY slightly.

9. Remove the cake and cool for 15 minutes in the pan

10. Carefully turn it out of the pan then flip onto a serving plate so the crackly side faces up

11. Cool completely

END product: a very THIN, but very moist, dense CHOCOLATY cake like a flourless chocolate cake but with a subtle lightness. Molly says to serve some lightly sweetened with whipped cream.

** All the pictures where taken of the cake made from 1/5th the batter so the cake should not be as thin as pictured above **

- Eunice