Cracked Chocolate Earth

It is a cake. Only in the sense that when you encounter it, it was clearly born from a cake pan. But honestly, the thing has little else to recommend it as one besides the round remnant of the side of the pan from whence it quite literally sprung.

I added up the ingredients and it just does not total ten pounds but when finished, it could easily pass for a soft, ten pound chocolate bar. It is a sterling recipe when you intend to go to absolutely little, frankly - insultingly little - trouble to make someone a cake and would not dream of reaching for a cake box but all the while intend to act very put out and exhausted about the entire endeavor.

It is marvelous and near peerless in its devastatingly unhealthy grandness. Eat it and know that a nutritionist somewhere can hear a bell ringing, I suppose.

But really. I will work it off, this perilous symphony of wickedness, I promise. Can you tell me how long, roughly, it takes to work off four of these? I am concerned it may be longer that I have, entirely.

Cracked Chocolate Earth
adapted from Tyler's Ultimates, Tyler Florence (Oh! How beautiful is that man?)
Serves 8 (easy peasy)

This cake was difficult to get a decent shot of, as is often the case with chocolate, you will just have to take my word for how remarkable the cake truly is. It is inevitable and correct that it rises very high during baking, as a souffle would, and falls when it retreats from the oven. All is as it should be.

Serve it once it has cooled: I used a cake knife but Chef Florence goes for broke with a spoon and just plunges it in, souffle-style as well.

I added orange zest; chocolate and fresh orange are fabulous together. Just remember that with chocolate, adding a little orange goes a long way. Though the original recipe was without orange or flavoring whatsoever.

1 cup (2 sticks butter), diced
1 pound good bittersweet chocolate
9 large eggs, separated
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon grated orange zest (optional)

Confectioner's sugar for dusting



Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9 inch springform pan, and set aside.

Put the chocolate and butter into a double boiler (or makeshift) and heat over 1 inch of simmering water until melted. Meanwhile, mix the egg yolks with the sugar in a mixing bowl until light yellow in color. Add a little of the warm chocolate into the egg mixture to temper the eggs. Once combined, add the remaining chocolate in two additions. Add the orange zest and mix in gently.

In a mixing bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form and fold into the chocolate mixture. Pout into the prepared pan and back until the cake is set and top starts to crack, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with moist crumbs clinging, 20 to 25 minutes. Allow the cake to stand 10 minutes, then remove the springform sides.

Serve at room temperature dusted with confectioner's sugar.