This cake was originally adapted from Julia Child’s “Queen of Sheba” from her iconic work, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”, and has become the signature chocolate dessert at Rendezvous.  Steve first started making this recipe in 1985, if you can believe that — some of the young cooks here weren’t even born then! Among the staff at Rendezvous, we refer to it as a sort of “Mexican Chocolate Cake” because it contains ground coffee and cinnamon.

Chocolate cake (makes one 9″ cake)

12 oz    semi-sweet chocolate, cut into pieces

12 oz    unsalted butter
1C    sugar
1t    espresso grinds
6    egg yolks

1/2C    all-purpose flour
1/2t    cinnamon
1/2t    salt

6    egg whites

Butter and flour one cake pan with removable sides.  Set aside for later.

In a large mixing bowl, gently melt the chocolate over a double-boiler.  Be careful to only heat the chocolate as little as necessary to melt it completely, then turn off the heat and allow it to stand at room temperature while preparing the rest of the ingredients.

In the mixer, cream the butter and the sugar together, adding the sugar in three separate steps, until creamy, fluffy and white in color.  Add the coffee grinds and beat them in.  Then add the egg yolks one at a time.

In a small bowl, stir together the dry ingredients.  Add them to the butter-sugar-egg mixture in the mixer and mix very briefly.  Remove the bowl from the mixer and transfer the batter to the mixing bowl with the melted chocolate.  Fold the melted chocolate into the batter very quickly, being careful not to over mix:  streaks of batter and chocolate may remain.

Beat the egg whites until soft peaks.  Do not over beat!  Fold them into the cake batter quickly but in three separate steps.  When the batter is smooth, turn it into a prepared cake pan and bake it in a 350F oven for @ 45 minutes.

Allow the cake to set for 20 minutes before removing from the pan.  This cake tastes best when served warm because of the cinnamon and espresso grounds in the batter.  If you prepare the cake well ahead of time, you can always re-heat it gently for a few minutes prior to serving.