Reine De Saba

A community recipe by Psappha

Not tested or verified by Nigella.com

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Introduction

A wonderful recipe for chocolate cake to be found in Julia Child (et al.)'s "Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume I". If you are looking for a cake with a rich chocolate flavour and a moist texture, this one is very hard to beat.

Ingredients

Serves: 6-8

4 ounces chocolate chips
2 tablespoons rum (or coffee)
4 ounces softened butter
⅔ cup sugar
3 separated eggs
1 pinch of salt
1 tablespoon sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract (or 1/4 teaspoon of almond extract)
6½ fluid ounces sifted cake flour

Method

Reine De Saba is a community recipe submitted by Psappha and has not been tested by Nigella.com so we are not able to answer questions regarding this recipe.

You will need a 8inch/20cm cake pan.

Preheat oven to 350F/180C/Gas Mark 4 and butter and flour the cake pan.

Using a double broiler, melt the chocolate with the rum/coffee.

Cream the butter and 2/3 cup/133g sugar together until pale and fluffy. Beat in the 3 egg yolks until well-blended.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with the pinch of salt until soft peaks are formed. Sprinkle the remaining Tbsp of sugar and beat until stiff peaks formed.

Using a rubber spatula, mix the melted chocolate into the butter/sugar mixture. Stir in the vanilla or almond extract. Immediately stir in 1/4 of the egg whites to lighten the mixture. Delicately and rapidly fold in 1/3 the remaining whites.

When almost blended, fold in 1/3 of the flour. Continue alternating between whites and flour until both are used up.

Scrape the batter into the cake pan and bake in centre of preheated oven for about 25 minutes. Cake is ready when a tester plunged into the outer edge of the cake comes out clean. The middle of the cake should not be completely set and a tester plunged into the cake's centre should come out oily. Allow cake to cool in its pan for 10 minutes, then run a knife around the edge of the cake to loosen it and reverse it onto a cake rack to cool fully (another hour or so).

Either ice the cake with a chocolate buttercream or with my "Adjustable Chocolate Icing" or simply serve with whipped cream and prehaps some raspberries.