Elizabeth David's Gateau Au Chocolat Et Aux Amandes

1/4 lb bitter chocolate

3 oz butter

3 oz caster sugar

3 oz ground almonds

3 eggs

1 tablespoon rum or brandy and black coffee

Laurie Colwin: A recipe for a perfect flourless chocolate cake appears in Elizabeth Davids French Provincial Cooking. It calls for almonds ground to a powder in the blender, confectioners sugar, bittersweet chocolate, some very strong coffee, egg yolks and egg whites. It is baked in a springform pan and the egg whites make it rise ever so slightly. As it cools, it slumps. The texture is of the finest fudge or the densest mousse. It is a pure, rich cake with a clear, cooked chocolate taste. All it needs is a little raspberry jam to glaze it and some whipped cream. Ice cream would kill it.

Break the chocolate into small pieces; put them with the rum and coffee to melt in a cool oven. Stir the mixture well, put it with the butter, sugar and ground almonds in a saucepan and stir over a low fire for a few minutes until all the ingredients are blended smoothly together. Off the fire, stir in the well-beaten egg yolks, and then fold in the stiffly-whipped whites. Turn into a lightly-buttered shallow sponge-cake tin, of 7 to 8 inches diameter, or a tart tin with a removable base. Stand the tin on a baking sheet and cook in a very low oven, 290 deg. F., for about 45 minutes. This cake, owing to the total absence of flour, is rather fragile, so turn it out, when it is cool, with the utmost caution. It can either be served as it is, or covered with lightly whipped and sweetened cream. It is a cake which is equally good for dessert or for tea-time.