Chocolate Cake for Passover

I don't normally like "flour-less chocolate cake" - the flavor is nice, but it has the texture of paste and who wants that?

So when we visited cousins in Miami and were served a souffle-like mostly-flourless chocolate cake, obviously we got the recipe to use for Passover.

Looking up the recipe online, it's clear that the cake has many ardent fans on the mommy-blogs.  And for good reason - it was trivial to make, and delicious.

Gâteau au chocolat fondant de Nathalie:

200 grams dark chocolate (I used 60% since it was on sale at whole foods, which worked out well),  cut into small pieces with a knife.
200 grams unsalted butter (I splurged for Kate's), cut into cubes. (It was just under two sticks)
200-250 grams sugar (I went on the high end, but regret it, next time I'll go lower)
5 eggs
1 Tablespoon coconut flour (the taste of coconut didn't come through at all, it was just to have some K4P binding)

Preheat the oven to 375 F

Melt the chocolate and butter together in the microwave until smooth and combined. Add the sugar, and stir. Add the eggs one at a time and stir into the batter (obviously I added all of the eggs at once. It probably took a little bit longer to get it all incorporated, but it worked fine). Add the flour.

Pour batter into the buttered cake pan and bake for approximately 25 minutes. In our oven it took about 30 minutes. It's done when nice cracks have formed.

The cake is really good - and poofy - straight out of the oven, but is arguably better once cooled.

Serve with whipped cream.

ginger molasses cookies

Followed almost to the letter from the awesome Flour cookbook.

I've wanted to try this recipe since I tried these cookies at Flour. I'm normally more of a chocolate-chip kind of girl, but this is the rare spice cookie that keeps pace with basically anything. The spice mixture is terrific, and it doesn't overpower the butter and other things. Bottom line: these still taste very much like indulgent cookies.

3/4 c. (1 1/2 sticks/170 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled to the touch
1 c. (220 grams) packed light brown sugar
1/4 c. (80 grams) unsulphured dark molasses
1 egg
2 c. (280 grams) unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
granulated sugar for coating

Note: I used dark brown sugar, which worked great. For the most part, the gram measurements were much easier to use, but for some reason the cup of brown sugar was well under the 220 grams on the ingredient list. I went with the cup rather than the weight measurement there.

1. In a stand mixer, mix butter, brown sugar, molasses, and egg on low speed for 20 seconds (or until well combined).

2. In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, salt, and cloves until well mixed. Add the flour mixture to the butter-sugar mixture and stir just until the dough is evenly mixed.

3. For the best results, scrape the dough into an airtight container and let it rest in the refrigerator. (The cookbook says to leave it in the fridge overnight, but I gave it about 5 hours and it worked great.)

4. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

5. Put some granulated sugar in a small bowl. Scoop out 1/4-cup bowls of dough, put them in the sugar, and roll the dough around until it's entirely coated. Placed the coated balls on a baking sheet, about 2 inches apart.

6. Bake for 14-16 minutes, or until cookies are crackly on top.

spiced pumpkin bread

This recipe may just be the holy grail of pumpkin breads. Nicely spiced, moist beyond reason from the pumpkin + applesauce combination, and a nice crisp to the top. Easy, too!

Slightly modified from smitten kitchen (duh) by gourmette*nyc:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup canned solid-packed pumpkin puree
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 large eggs
1 cup plus 1 tbs sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon (but I tend to be a bit heavy-handed here)
1/4 tsp nutmeg
a pinch or two of all spice
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour one 9 inch loaf pan or two six inch loaf pans.

In a medium bowl, mix together the flour and baking powder. In a large bowl, whisk together pumpkin, applesauce, eggs, 1 cup sugar, baking soda, salt, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, nutmeg, and all spice until smooth. Whisk in flour mixture until just combined. Then, add the raisins and whisk to combine.

Stir together remaining 1 tsp cinnamon and remaining 1 tablespoon sugar in a small bowl.

Pour batter into one large loaf pan or two smaller loaf pans, sprinkle the top with the cinnamon-sugar mixture. Bake until puffed and golden brown and wooden pick or skewer inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes.

Cool in pan on a rack for 5 minutes, then transfer to rack and cool.