Dark Chocolate Cake, with Raspberry Rose Cream

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This dark chocolate cake is not a typical cake texture—it is fudgy, extremely moist, and brownie-like around the edges. A spoonful of raspberry rose whipped cream on top is luscious. The cake and cream pull together swiftly and ahead of time, and please pretty much everyone who ever comes to your table.

The other night a few of us got to talking about the aromas that have been especially memorable from different times and places of our lives. I couldn’t help but recall the ethanol that filled the air space when I lived in South Bend. Aunt Louise thought she remembered in particular the scent of chocolate swirling through the air when we went to my cousin’s wedding in Chicago.

Yes, chocolate! in the Loop!, I told her she was dead-on with that aroma-memory, one that triggered my recollection of chocolate Chicago mornings: stepping off the packed train at Washington and Wells with the wind slapping me around and a long day at the office ahead, only to be greeted by the pervasive scent of deep, dark chocolate from Blommer’s chocolate company over on Kinzie. Blommer’s happens to be the largest cocoa processor and supplier of ingredient chocolate in North America, so this wasn’t small-batch chocolate whiff, this was massive-scale, pervasive chocolate.

Given those chocolate-covered mornings, I don’t blame myself for the chocolate fix I then scrounged after all day long. Then at the mere mention of the chocolate-Loop scent the other day, I can’t blame myself for thinking nonstop about dark chocolate scent and flavor.

Thankfully it is my birthday week over here, and the birthday girl gets to pick whatever cake she wants. I usually want chocolate cake, but right now I after something more intense. There’s not a lot of time or mind-space to be spent in the kitchen right now on much that isn’t Lebanese cookbook-worthy, so this year my cake, which of course I am baking for myself, also has to be super simple.

At Tante Marie’s, we made a dark chocolate torte that had just a spoonful of flour in it, and the rest was tremendous-quality chocolate, rich butter, sugar, and eggs. Brownie-esque but most definitely a cake. That thing is just gorgeous, with batter that is so lush in chocolate that its scent takes me directly and happily to my chocolate Loop mornings. I loved that cake so much that I baked it for my dessert course for my culinary school final exam (that went well, except I didn’t take time to toast the walnuts I used to decorate the cake. Points were slashed).

The challenge for that wasn’t as much the cake as it was glazing it perfectly with a glossy chocolate-butter glaze. I loved doing that, but right now, right this week, glaze isn’t happening. Powdered sugar is happening, that best-buddy for dressing up just about any cake when there is no place in your life for icing.

But also, for flourish because here we are at Valentine’s Day too this next week, and a Valentine-type of birthday calls for something pink and rosy: whipped cream, swirled through with raspberry and a drop of rose water. Dollop that on the dark chocolate cake, and pow!, a new and ever so glorious chocolate aroma (and taste) memory is born.

Chocolate Fudge Cake with Rosewater Cream, MaureenAbood.com
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Dark Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Rose Cream

By Maureen Abood
This is not a typical cake texture—it is fudgy, extremely moist, and brownie-like around the edges. It pulls together swiftly and ahead of time, and pleases pretty much everyone who ever comes to your table. 
Servings: 8

Ingredients 

For the cake:

  • 7 oz. best quality dark chocolate (60 to 70%) chopped
  • 7 tablespoons unsalted butter (Plugra is ideal), cut into 1-inch pieces
  • 1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
  • 5 large eggs
  • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 tablespoon unbleached all-purpose flour

For the cream:

  • 1 cup heavy whipping cream, cold
  • 1/4 teaspoon rose water
  • Handful raspberries

Instructions 

  • Butter a 9-inch round cake pan and line the bottom with parchment; also butter the parchment. Heat the oven, with a rack placed in the center, to 375 F.
  • Melt the chocolate in a double boiler (make your own by setting a bowl over a saucepan, without the bowl touching a few inches of water beneath in the pan). As the chocolate melts, add the butter a few tablespoons at a time, stirring constantly with a whisk.
  • When the butter and chocolate are all melted, remove the bowl from the double boiler, and add the sugar and whisk to combine. Add the eggs, one at a time and whisking well to incorporate each egg before adding the next one. The batter will look grainy but shiny until the last egg goes in, and then the batter will be smooth and silky.
  • Whisk in a pinch of salt and a tablespoon of flour, and pour the batter into the prepared pan, inhaling the chocolate scent as you go. Bake the cake for about 25 minutes, or until the top is crackly and the center no longer looks shiny. The clean-toothpick test doesn’t work here because the center of the cake remains fudgy. Cool the cake for about 10 minutes. Flip the cake out onto a plate, then flip it onto another plate so the crackly top is facing up. Dust lightly with powdered sugar.
  • While the cake bakes, place the raspberries in a bowl with a tablespoon of sugar, and mash up some of the berries with a fork. Whip the cream with a tablespoon of powdered sugar and the rose water. Swirl the raspberries into the cream.
  • I like to cut the cake into wedges at the table, with a bowl of the swirled cream right next to it. Anticipation is a great way to whet an appetite. A few extra raspberries on the plates when serving make a nice touch too. 

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

Additional Info

Author: Maureen Abood
Servings: 8
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24 Comments

    1. Nancy I don’t use unsweetened, but you can. The recipe calls for the “60-70% dark” chocolate which is different than unsweetened as it does have some sugar content in it.

  1. I made the cake yesterday and it is delicious! I didn’t have the raspberries but had Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream. This is a keeper. I love your recipes! Thank you!!

    1. Well the ice cream is a perfect match Gale! Thanks so much, I’m happy you have a new keeper in this favorite recipe!

  2. I just finished reading Charlie and the Chocolate factory to my grandchildren. Your cake, Maureen, will be the grand finale to celebrate!

    “Twice a day, on his way to and from school, little Charlie Bucket had to walk right past the gates of the factory. And every time he went by, he would begin to walk very, very slowly, and he would hold his nose high in the air and take long deep sniffs of the gorgeous chocolatey smell all around him.”

    — Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Charlie Bucket Book 1) by Roald Dahl
    https://a.co/9S5eOT4

    1. This is SO wonderful Marlene!!!! Thank you!! Reminds me of the scent of chocolate I enjoyed in the air in Chicago from the chocolate company there.

  3. Happy Birthday Maureen! This cake is right up my alley and I’ll have to make it for my daughter and my birthday next week.

    Pat

  4. Dear Maureen,

    Wish you a Happy and Blessed Birthday.
    I tried the zatar fries for a superbowl party and they were a hit.

  5. This looks delicious, Maureen. I just watched Ina Garten make a similar “brownie cake” in a pie dish.
    She advocates adding a teaspoon of instant coffee granules to anything Chocolate. ‘Says it greatly enhances the chocolate flavor.

    I’m with you, and prefer a dusting of confectioners sugar to frosting (way too much sugar, sometimes overkill.) but Ina does overkill alot and typically she frosted her brownie pie (cake) with drizzles of
    ganache. Haven’t tried either, though very tempted now 🙂 Have a great birthday, dear Maureen!

    1. Thanks so much! I love the coffee idea and will do that next time I bake this cake (which will be soon)! Much love to both of you, miss you–

    2. I’ve never used Rose Water in anything before, but it’s wonderful! I am diabetic, as are several of my family, and BIG chocolate lovers, so your cake caught my eye! I switched all the sugar for a Stevia/Splenda blend I’ve used many times, as well as the powdered sugar. Everything else was exactly the same. The cake was delicious, but something went wrong in the baking – the cake rose out of the pan and stayed like like that when the timer went off. I let it cool, and it slowly sank back into the round cake pan. Not the prettiest presentation! My fault I’m sure. Any ideas how to fix this? By the way, I have used a number of your recipes for YEARS. My fav is Muhammara and touched, although the tour is quite fussy.

      1. Alisa I’m so happy you made and loved this as much as we do! This cake top is meant to be rustic, so it sounds like yours was spot on. The dusting of powdered sugar on top adds another lovely element. Thank you for your kind words too!

  6. Happy Birthday cousin.
    I always fall back on a chocolate “souffle” recipe (that is more like molten chocolate cake) from Roy’s restaurant. I love that cake, but now I am going to make this one. It looks awesome and I am for anything chocolate. Thanks…love to try new things and this looks maaaarrrrvelous.

  7. I’m not really a chocolate lover, but that cake is tempting! And those dishes – especially the sugar? bowl!
    Sets it off perfectly! Much love to you on your birthday and always!