Chocolate Cake with Prunes
Chocolate Cake with Prunes
Bethli Stöckli
This is a Swiss cake. I often make cakes when we do conservation work somewhere in nature (like planting or cutting shrubs, mowing and haying etc.) with a little group of volunteers for the society for the protection of nature. We then sit somewhere on the grass or may be we are invited by the landowners, have sandwiches and other stuff and always biscuits, muffins, brownies or a cake. This cake can be made at any time of the year. It is also good when you have an invitation to someone?s house and want to make something in advance, because you can keep the cake for about a week (in the fridge).
Ingredients
120 gm. dried prunes without stones
3 tbsp. rum or kirsch
0.5 dl. or 40 ml. coffee (1 decilitre = 100 millilitres). Use any strong coffee, it can even be a leftover
200 gm. chocolate
100 gm. butter
120 gm. fine sugar
4 egg yolks
200 gm. ground almonds
4 tablespoons cornstarch
4 egg whites
2 tablespoons sugar
1 pinch of salt
1 knife point or a pinch of baking powder. This helps to make the egg whites stiff.
Chocolate Icing:
175 gm icing sugar
2 full tablespoons of cocoa powder
1 teaspoon of soft butter or ghee
3 tablespoons of water
Instructions
Soak the prunes overnight in rum or kirsch liquor.
Notes
*The toothpick should be dry when it is to be put into the cake and moist when withdrawn, because the cake should still be moist inside. If the toothpick is dry when you withdraw it, the cake is over cooked and will be rather dry and nothing special. The secret of all cakes is, that they should not be dry, but taken out of the oven when you think it is too early.
Cool on a wire rack when ready.
