The Chocolate Pavarotti

Unexpected company on Saturday ate the chocolate tart I’d made for Father’s Day so I needed something quick, easy and chocolate-y to replace that dessert. Rose Levy Beranbaum came to the rescue with a new chocolate cake recipe that was posted on her blog recently, one that will appear in her newest book.

The cake comes together quickly using the author’s 2-step mixing method. It’s a cocoa-based chocolate cake that includes some melted white chocolate. It’s also a little unusual in that it contains both butter and oil. It baked in 46 minutes and though the author mentions a cracked top, that didn’t happen to mine.

The cake is fantastic……it has a delicious milk chocolate (as opposed to bittersweet chocolate) flavour and the crumb is tender and velvety but holds together very well, making for nice, clean slices.

To me, a true test of any cake is if it can stand alone, and this one does. I added a totally unnecessary sprinkling of powdered sugar and served it with dulce de leche whipped cream to amp it up just a bit for Father’s Day.