Valrhona Chocolate Orbit Cake Recipe

Sometimes when I walk into a restaurant, something curious appears on the menu. There might be something labelled Valrhona chocolate tart, or Valrhona chocolate cake. And it’ll invariably be the most expensive dessert on the menu. The question that first popped into my head was “What the heck is Valrhona?”

Bought from Sun Lik, Singapore. Link below

Valrhona is a luxury French chocolate-maker, one that produces premium chocolate. Along with several other established brands, for example Callebaut (Belgian) and Scharffen Berger (USA), they primarily target chocolatiers and pastry chefs working in high-end restaurants, who melt down these chocolate and turn them into a finished product (like chocolate truffles!).

Yarra Valley Chocolaterie & Ice Creamery, a major tourist attraction in Melbourne, sources their chocolate from Callebaut. I’ve been lucky enough to get my hands on some Callebaut and began making desserts with it as well.

Try as I might though, I could never persuade myself to buy a block of Valrhona chocolate, which cost twice as much as Callebaut per weight.

So imagine my utter delight, when a wonderful friend of mine gave me une tablette de chocolat Valrhona as a gift out of the blue.

This calls for a special flourless chocolate cake recipe that I’ve been wanting to try for some time. A recipe where chocolate is the one and only flavour, and all I was waiting for was the right chocolate. Well, look no further, boy.

The stenciled ghost is so appropriate in so many ways... okay, about three. 

Mon dieu. This flourless chocolate cake is divine, and is easily one of the most delicious dessert I have ever tasted, either bought or made. The recipe calls for just four ingredients, chocolate, butter, eggs and sugar. Because of only four ingredients, the flavour of the cake is carried by the chocolate used, so it's worthwhile to search for a good chocolate. I used Lindt baking chocolate on another try, and the chocolate-y taste came across strong and rich as well.

CHOCOLATE ORBIT CAKE

Adapted from David Lebovitz’s Ready for Dessert
(Recipe here)

Yield:  One 9-inch cake

Ingredients:
10 ounces (283g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
7 ounces (200g) butter, salted or unsalted, cut into pieces
5 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup (200g) sugar (I used 30g less)
1-2 tbsp cocoa powder, for the cake pan.

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 350F. (177 C)

Melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler, stirring occasionally, until just melted and smooth. Remove from heat and let cool.

Butter a 9-inch (23 cm) springform pan and dust it with cocoa powder, tapping out any excess. (Because you're awesome, go ahead and tap the cocoa powder right into the chocolate mixture. Waste not, want not.) If you suspect your springform pan isn’t water-tight, wrap the outside with aluminum foil, making sure it goes all the way up to the outer rim.  If you do not have a springform pan, use a round cake pan lined with a circle of parchment paper

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar. Drizzle in the 1/3 of the melted chocolate mixture slowly, whisking quickly as you do so. Then whisk in the rest of the chocolate mixture until smooth.

Pour the batter into the prepared springform pan and cover the top of the pan snugly with a sheet of foil. Put the springform pan into a larger roasting pan, and add enough hot water to the baking pan to come about halfway up to the outside of the cake pan. (I never had such a large roasting pan, and just use the standard tray that comes with the oven. It comes up to about 1/3 height of the cake.)  

Check the water level occasionally and top up whenever necessary. Bake until cake appears set, approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes. Your finger should come away clean when you gently touch the center; the cake will still feel quite soft.   Remove the cake from water bath and let cool completely before serving. Serve thin wedges of this very rich cake at room temperature, with creme anglaise, ice cream, or whipped cream.

Storage: This chocolate cake can be wrapped and chilled in the refrigerator for 3-5 days.

CRÈME ANGLAISE 

Original recipe from David Lebovitz
Yield:   1 to 1-1/2 cups

Ingredients:
1 cup (236ml) whole milk
1 vanilla bean split down the middle
3 tablespoons sugar
3 large egg yolks
pinch of salt

Preparation:

Combine milk, vanilla bean, and sugar in a small sauce pan and warm the mixture until just before it simmers; remove from heat and allow the bean to steep 10 minutes. Prepare an ice bath (a large bowl of ice, with a small bowl set in the ice, with a strainer set in the bowl). 

This is my set-up. I chose an inner bowl (to collect the creme through the strainer) that's taller than the outer bowl (which contains the water/ice mixture) so water wouldn't get sloshed into the inner bowl.

In a separate bowl, whisk the yolks together and set aside.

Whisk some of the warmed milk into the yolks to temper them, then add the yolk-mixture to the milk mixture. Stir with a heatproof rubber spatula over medium heat until it’s thick, a minute or two or more depending on your heat, until it has a nice sauce-like consistency.  The mixture should coat the spatula. Do not boil.

"Coating the spatula": Running a finger down the spatula should leave a line that stays. This is almost, but not quite, done. Note that this creme anglaise, which uses all milk and no cream, would be more runny. 

Immediately strain sauce into the ice cold bowl and stir with the spatula till the sauce is chilled.