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Boca Negra cake

Boca Negra Cake

Closely adapted from Baking with Julia;

Note: be sure to prepare the white chocolate cream at least 1 day in advance.

Course Dessert
Author TheSpicedLife

Ingredients

For the white chocolate cream sauce:

  • 12 oz good quality white chocolate I used Guittard, coarsely chopped
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • 1/4 cup bourbon or more to taste(I was forced to sub vanilla vodka)

For the cake:

  • 12 oz bittersweet chocolate coarsely chopped (I used Scharffen Berger 71%)
  • 1 1/3 cups sugar
  • 1/2 cup bourbon I was forced to use vanilla vodka
  • 1 cup 2 sticks or 8 oz unsalted butter, cut into 10 pieces, at room temperature
  • 5 large eggs at room temperature
  • 1 1/2 T AP flour

Instructions

Make the white chocolate cream sauce:

  1. Put the white chocolate into the work bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade. Process until it is finely chopped. 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.
  2. Pour the prepared cream 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.

Make and serve the cake:

  1. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350.
  2. Lightly spray the bottom of a 9-inch round cake pan with baking spray. Line the bottom with parchment or waxed paper; butter the paper and sides of the pan. Put the cake pan in a shallow roasting pan and set aside until needed.
  3. Put the chopped chocolate in a food processor. Process until finely chopped.
  4. In a medium saucepan, mix 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 process until the chocolate is completely melted and the mixture is smooth.
  5. Piece by piece, add the butter into the chocolate mixture with the processor running. Make certain that each piece of butter is melted before you add another. Add the eggs, one at a time, while the processor continues to run. Add the flour and then let the processor run for an additional 15 seconds.
  6. 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.
  7. Cover the top of the pan with a large piece of plastic wrap--at this point the excess plastic wrap will cling to the sides of the warm pan. Invert the plate onto a large plate (not the plate you will serve it on) and (this part was easier with 2 people) peel the plastic wrap from the sides of the pan, so that the plastic wrap is no longer attached in any way to the pan. Before it can reattach, lift the pan off of the cake, leaving the cake behind on the plate. Remove the parchment paper which will be stuck to the bottom of the cake. Place the ultimate serving plate or platter on top of the cake and invert again. Peel the plastic wrap off of the cake.
  8. Serve the cake warm or at room temperature with the chilled white chocolate cream (folded into whipped cream as described above, if desired).
  9. 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. I used my cake keeper to store it without any plastic wrap. For longer storage, wrap the cake airtight and freeze it; it will keep up to a month. Thaw overnight, still wrapped, in the refrigerator.