Crash Test Cake

Today is my boss's birthday and I decided to bring in a cake ("Suck-up!", the Empress remarked). I baked a super-easy-to-make gateau au chocolat (Coco's Au-Pair Mum's recipe) last night after swimming. On the bus this morning, I squeezed past all the school-kids with bulky backpacks to the middle of the articulated bus, carefully placing the paper bag containing the cake on a pedestal-like contraption. We had not even reached the next stop when the driver slammed on the brakes like a madman, causing me to loose grip of the handle and fall on my back like a beetle. In slow motion, the bag also slid to the floor, aluminium foil flying off the pyrex pan. Oh-oh, I thought, fully prepared to see bits of broken glass and cake crumbs in the bag (luckily, the cake hadn't slid out of the bag), but no such thing. I managed to bring it to the office in one piece:

So just in case you ever want to take a cake on a roller-coaster or, alternatively, are looking for a simple recipe (you only need one bowl and a whisk, no mixer, no dishes to wash up other than that) for an incredibly rich chocolate cake, here's the recipe:

Gateau au chocolat 

200 g (dark) chocolate - the better the chocolate, the better the cake

125 g diced butter 

100g sugar 

3 eggs

1 tablespoon of plain flour

Put the (broken up) chocolate in a heat-proof bowl and dissolve over a pot of boiling water

Add the butter cubes and let them dissolve in the liquid chocolate

Fold in the sugar and eggs, stir until smooth

Add the flour

Transfer to buttered and floured baking pan (flat). Bake for 15-20 mins with 200° (preheated oven). The cake should be solid on the outside and soft-ish on the inside. Tastes great with vanilla ice-cream.

Serve in small slices as it is very rich indeed.

Bon appétit!