Intense Dark Chocolate Cake

A recipe for a dense chocolate cake with chocolate icing.

Source:  Adapted from Chocolate Armagnac Cake by Dorie Greenspan in her book, Baking: From My Home to Yours

I got such a sweet deal on these two Dorie Greenspan cookbooks recently.  I was beyond excited when Around My French Table and Baking arrived in an Amazon box on my front porch.  I spent days drooling over recipes, and trying to decide which to make first.  I changed my mind several times. Lemon Tart?  Basque Cake?  Devil’s Food?  Indecision haunted me… 

…until I found this Chocolate Armagnac Cake.

**WARNING!! Only serve this cake to the most dedicated chocoholics!**

**The intense flavor of this cake is not for the faint of heart.**

I’m not sure what drew me in first.  I don’t think it was the picture, because it is not on the same page as the recipe, and it was the recipe I saw first.  I’m pretty sure it was the first sentence, which began, “This extremely intense chocolatey chocolate cake….”  You had me at chocolate, Dorie.

Well, I made some changes, but not so much because I wanted to.  First, I was completely out of walnuts, much to my chagrin.  I reluctantly used extra flour to compensate.  I was completely out of bittersweet chocolate, too, but I had plenty of dark chocolate, so I used that instead.  I didn’t figure anyone would complain about it.  I also left out the armagnac-soaked prunes.  I have nothing against prunes, but I don’t drink, so spending time and money on Armagnac that I won’t drink didn’t appeal to me much.  I decided, sadly, to just leave it out.

This is not exactly your typical bake-it-until-the-toothpick-comes-out-clean kind of cake.  Dorie recommends you remove it from the oven when a knife inserted near the center comes out streaky.  Mine came out clean… dang it!

It’s completely inedible now!  I absolutely cannot serve that to anyone!  (except myself.)

Actually, even though the knife came out clean, when I cut into the cake, I still found some lovely gooey-ness dotted through the cake, mostly near the center.  It was seriously perfect.

I had a hard time letting mine cool enough to frost.  I could smell the chocolate nirvana all through the house.  The neighbors could probably smell it, too.  Seriously, if you want to drive people crazy, bake this when you have a hungry crowd in your house.

It’s weird, but I can honestly say that this is one of my favorite things I have ever put in my mouth… and I will probably not make it very often at all.  It is so intensely chocolate, it absolutely cannot be eaten without a glass of milk.  In fact, the slice I cut in the picture was about double the size it needed to be.  A small sliver will give you your recommend allowance of dark chocolate for the month.  I wished that I had a scoop of vanilla ice cream to go with it.  A small slice of this intense chocolate cake and a scoop of good quality vanilla bean ice cream would literally be… well…

…perfect.

If you enjoy this recipe, you might also enjoy:

Triple Chocolate Oreo Chunk Cookies from Jen’s Favorite Cookies

Molten Lava Cake from Our Best Bites