Tuesdays With Dorie: Chocolate Armagnac Cake

This week’s recipe, chosen for us by LyB of And Then I Do the Dishes, did not sound the slightest bit yummy to me. I don’t like fruit. I don’t like alcohol (except for Kahlua and the amazing mudslide mix my father-in-law buys at Christmas). And I’m sick to death of dark chocolate.

I wasn’t going to make it. I do TWD almost every week, so I figured I could skip a week.

Then #1 Son got hold of the recipe. He likes fruit. He loves alcohol. And he loves dark chocolate.

So I turn over the bulk of this post to my guest blogger:

“I made it with rum and prunes, and it was one of the easiest and tastiest chocolate cakes I have ever made. I would happily make it again.”

He’s a man of few words, at least when there’s no bacon involved.

So I guess that wasn’t the bulk of the post, and I apologize for its brevity. He cut the recipe by two-thirds and baked the result in an oval ramekin.

I had the smallest bite of this cake, and as expected, I didn’t like it. The rest of them did, though:

Husband: I actually thought that the alcohol-softened prunes added quite a bit to the dark fudginess. There was a light fruit note that was quite enticing. I found the glaze a little simple, but it didn’t detract. I didn’t think it was necessary, ultimately. Given my choice, I would have put a little dollop of unsweetened whipped cream on top.

#1 Son: I liked it a lot. It had a really great fudgy texture, but wasn’t too rich and had a real depth of flavor. It was my favorite thing out of the Dorie book so far. Didn’t get much prune or rum flavor, though. I would have liked it with a little orange marmalade on top. That would have enhanced both the dark chocolate and fruit flavors, and been a light counterpart to the fudginess.

#2 Son: It was pretty good overall. The cake was good; I liked the bits of prune.

Sorry, folks — that’s all I’ve got today. Go check out all the other TWD bloggers to see what they did with the cake, and if you want to try it yourself, buy Baking: From My Home to Yours, by Dorie Greenspan, or visit And Then I Do the Dishes, where the recipe will appear.