Boca Negra Cake

Last weekend my boyfriend was moping about being bored and unproductive. He wanted to cook something. I said, “Well, get your ass up and be productive.” We flipped through “Baking with Julia” – Child, that is – and found a Boca Negra cake by Lora Brody. Translated from Spanish, this means “black mouth”.

The cake contains lots of chocolate, so get good chocolate. It also contains bourbon, so get good bourbon because you can taste the bourbon in the finished cake.

Learn From our Mistakes
We made the mistake of putting the batter in a 7-inch pan instead of a 9-inch pan. This caused the cake to not bake in the directed 30 minutes. We baked it longer, with no effect. We then measured the pan and discovered the mistake. We scraped off the partially cooked top, leaving an aesthetically unpleasing top on the cake and baked longer. If you have a pan smaller than 9 inches, just don’t use all of the batter – wisdom that came late to us.

About an hour and a half later we had one baked cake – that did not come out of the pan. You’re supposed to line the bottom with parchment paper, which we did not have. We improvised with a coating of butter and flour on the pan with no results.

The cake was ugly – due to our scraping off the top of a half-baked cake – but it was sooo good. We did not make the cream since it's supposed to be made a day ahead. The cake was most definitely dense, rich and chocolaty. I inhaled the entire cake over the next two days, eating it for breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner, and midnight snack. I have so self-will.

Boca Negra Cake
adapted from Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan

"The cake is meant to be served warm or at room temperature, when it is as moist, dense and dark as the chocolate you use to make it. Chilled, it has all the appeal of fudge. The white chocolate cream, which is made a day ahead, is one you can use with other desserts, and neither the cake nor the cream is a challenge for beginner bakers. In fact, if you make it in the food processor; it takes only 5 minutes." Makes 12 servings.

Cream
12 ounces white chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup bourbon (or more to taste)

• Prepare the white chocolate cream at least 1 day in advance.
  
• Put the white chocolate into the work bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade or a blender container. Heat the heavy cream in a small saucepan until small bubbles form around the edge of the pan. Pour the cream over the chocolate and process until completely smooth. Add the bourbon, taste, and add up to a tablespoon more if you want.
  
• Turn into a container with a tight-fitting lid and chill overnight. The cream can be kept covered in the refrigerator for a week or frozen for up to a month. If you've frozen the cream, thaw it overnight in the refrigerator.

Cake
12 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 1/3 cups sugar
1/2 cup bourbon
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into 10 pieces, at room temperature
5 large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

• Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350.
  
• Lightly butter a 9-inch round cake pan and line the bottom with parchment or waxed paper; butter the paper. Put the cake pan in a shallow roasting pan and set aside until needed.
• Put the chopped chocolate in a medium bowl and keep close at hand.
  
• In a 2-quart saucepan, mix 1 cup of the sugar and the bourbon and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar dissolves and the mixture comes to a full boil.
• Immediately pour the hot syrup over the chocolate and stir with a rubber spatula until the chocolate is completely melted and the mixture is smooth.
  
• Piece by piece, stir the butter into the chocolate mixture. Make certain that each piece of butter is melted before you add another.
• Put the eggs and the remaining 1/3-cup sugar in a medium bowl and whisk until the eggs thicken slightly. Beating with the whisk, add the eggs to the chocolate mixture and whisk until well blended. Gently whisk in the flour.
• Pour and scrape the batter into the prepared pan, running your spatula over the top to smooth it.
  
• Pour enough hot water into the roasting pan to come about 1 inch up the side of the cake pan.
  
• Bake the cake for exactly 30 minutes, at which point the top will have a thin, dry crust.
  
• Remove the cake pan from its water bath, wipe the pan dry and cover the top of the cake with a sheet of plastic wrap. Invert the cake onto a flat plate, peel off the parchment and quickly but gently invert again onto a serving platter, remove the plastic.
• Serve the cake warm or at room temperature with the chilled white chocolate cream.
• Once cooled, the cake can be covered with plastic and kept at room temperature for 1 day or refrigerated for up to 3 days; bring to room temperature before serving. For longer storage, wrap the cake airtight and freeze it; it will keep up to a month. Thaw overnight, still wrapped, in the refrigerator.