This week's experiment was a last minute decision. A friend of mine mentioned making this cake for her husband this week and it sounded so good, I just had to try it.

It was quick and easy to make and, fortunately, I had all the ingredients at home... well, almost, I didn't have 200g of 70% cocoa chocolate. I had one 60% bar (113g) and also used semi-sweet baking chocolate.

The result: first, you gotta love dark chocolate. The taste is powerful and, if you don't like dark chocolate, well, you won't like this. You can really feel it on the back of your tongue. The orange taste was also pretty strong (although my daughter says she couldn't taste it) but a good complement to the dark chocolate.

I do not like when recipes are not precise. In this case, the size of the pan was vague ("a large pan"). How big is a large pan? And is a large pan in France the equivalent of a small or medium pan in the US (you know, like fast-food portions)? So, I used a 10" pan...
Now, I knew from the comments on the recipe not to expect a high cake. However, this was really thin, as in between 1/2" and 3/4" thick. I understand that this was not a regular cake, there is no flour, but was the thickness due to the large pan or really all I could expect? If I used a smaller pan, would it make the cake higher or just prevent it from cooking thoroughly in the allocated time.

The texture of the cake was fantastic. It is very much like a mousse, light and fluffy. But, careful, the richness of the cake makes me wonder if having a thicker cake would really be a good idea or just become too overwhelming. I would suggest serving this maybe with a scoop of French vanilla ice cream, or at least whip cream.

Original recipe here.
Ingredients:

• 200g dark chocolate (70%)
• 1 orange (pick organic, since using the zest).
• 5 eggs, separated
  
• 50g butter
• 10g cornstarch
• 30g powdered sugar
• 2 pinches of cinnamon
  

Preparation:

1. Wash the orange thoroughly, zest it with a grater, squeeze the juice and keep everything aside.
2. Break the chocolate in small pieces and melt it in a double-boiler (bain-marie).
3. Melt the butter in the orange juice.
4. In a large bowl, mix the sugar, cinnamon and cornstarch. Then add the egg yolks one at a time.
5. Add the orange zest, then the chocolate, then the melted butter/orange juice.
6. Beat the whites with a pinch of salt. Incorporate them little by little into the chocolate batter.
7. Pour the batter in a buttered/floured large pan (see note above).
8. Bake it for 20-25 minutes at 350 degrees.
9. Let it cool before removing it from the pan.
10. Decorate using powdered sugar, candied orange peels, grated chocolate...
    

Notes:

• The surface of the cake was beautiful! I went for the quick and easy powdered sugar to decorate, but really, it was a shame to hide the beautiful surface.
• I've mentioned the taste was very strong and not very sweet at all. If you prefer sweeter, try and modify the recipe to add more sugar OR

• Try the recipe with milk chocolate (omit the orange zest and replace the orange juice with milk and cocoa powder). I don't know what the result would be but since there is more sugar in milk chocolate...

I was cleaning up the kitchen and had three oranges that needed to be used before spoiling, so I searched for recipes that used orange juice and this is what I found.
This is a very simple cake but oh so good. It is light, with a very subtle taste (I didn't have the orange zest but it definitely can use it). It springs back when you cut it, it is moist. Definitely a success...

The cooking time was off, I had to bake it for 55 minutes instead of 40, but otherwise, everything worked. I looked for and found a recipe for icing using orange juice. I need to find a way to get all the lumps of sugar. If I hadn't been so impatient, I might have taken the time to sift the sugar and might have seen a difference. The recipe called for 1/2 cup juice but it's a lot of sugar.... and I didn't even get to the consistency mentioned (where you can spread the icing). I did add some orange extract to the icing and I think it is definitely something to do in the future as I'd need to use less liquid to have a thicker icing.

If it hadn't been an improvised project, I would have decorated with slices of orange in addition to mint leaves, or even mandarin orange slices. Something with a strong orange color. This cake could also handle a filling, I'd go for a soft and subtly orange cream or orange jam... Actually raspberry jam could work well with the orange.

I could see using this for petits-fours, cupcakes... The recipe called for a tube shape mold, so that could look great too.

Well, I'm very happy with the final result, I mean REALLY happy, it tastes so good!!!