Chocolate cloud cake

("Eat more ham" flickr.com by Angela Mabray)

Happy Thanksgiving.....

I found a chocolate cloud cake recipe online at cookstr.com, by Nigella Lawson 

and I'm going to make it.  Here it is:

Ingredients and Equipment 

• 9 ounces bittersweet chocolate, minimum 70% cocoa solids
• ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
• 6 eggs: 2 whole, 4 separated
• ½ cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 tablespoons Cointreau (optional)
• 9-inch springform cake pan

For the cream topping:

 

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon Cointreau (optional)
• ½ teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder for sprinkling

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Line the bottom of the cake pan with baking parchment.

Melt the chocolate either in a double boiler or a microwave, and then let the butter melt in the warm chocolate.

Beat the 2 whole eggs and 4 egg yolks with l/3 cup of the sugar, then gently add the chocolate mixture, the Cointreau and the orange zest.

In another bowl, whisk the 4 egg whites until foamy, then gradually add the remaining sugar and whisk until the whites hold their shape but are not too stiff. Lighten the chocolate mixture with a dollop of egg whites, and then fold in the rest of the whites. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 35–40 minutes or until the cake is risen and cracked and the center is no longer wobbly. Cool the cake in its pan on a wire rack; the middle will sink as it cools.

When you are ready to eat, place the still pan-bound cake on a cake stand or plate for serving and carefully remove the cake from its pan. Don’t worry about cracks or rough edges: it’s the crater look we’re going for here. Whip the cream until it’s soft and then add the vanilla and Cointreau and continue whisking until the cream is firm but not stiff. Fill the crater of the cake with the whipped cream, easing it out gently toward the edges of the cake, and dust the top lightly with cocoa powder pushed through a tea-strainer.

You can make this into an Easter Nest Cake by folding 7 ounces of melted chocolate into the cream topping and dotting with sugar-coated eggs instead of the cocoa. Leave the Cointreau out of both the cake and cream.

Then, enjoy your Chocolate cloud cake!

Day of the dull

Dear reader,

Today, I have no big thing I have or did so I'll just tell you about my regular sunday day.


I first went up to my country house Friday night that is upstate NY,so today I left. Woke up in the morning feeling like canned soup. Then I ate an oddly French breakfast and watched old SNL episodes later on. Then, left back to manhattan.

Athena was so gassy, It was a her horrifying smell that filled the car.

When I got to my apartment, I went to some cheap nail salon and came back home with navy blue fingers. Yeah, my day might not have been as exciting as yours but as long as I wasn't sitting on a couch, then blogging my snore sound. It's possible so be glad I had a story.


Sincerely,

Martine

Fashion Convention

Sorry I haven't been blogging. I've been forgetting. But I have been taking pictures of things I see. Ok, so it's fall....leaves fall automatically off trees, people raking, jackets (not tank tops) and heaters being turned on. I forget if I mentioned but I have another house upstate New York and here, it completely freezing. I saw ducks and thought "if i can't stay here with a three layer cot, you can't stay here and live off of seeds in a bunch of feathers.". 

Wait, I haven't shown you some of my pictures! (go to the bottom of the page)

I went to some fashion/art convention, it was free and on the weekend. Theyr'e were lots of hand-on things, Marc Jacobs did an inside look on what it's like to be a model and you walked into a room with mirrors (of course I don't have a picture) and then you went onto a runway with managers. Then you walked down it and the walls were covered in blue. after you walked you get out and in another gigantic room, you are projected into a show for 2008. Lots of technology goes on with it. projecting your body onto a projector, using the blue walls as like a techno background. It was amazing.