For various reasons I've been thinking about extremely decadent chocolate
desserts recently (what - a REASON is necessary?) Anyway, I can't really
decide which among several possibilities would be best. The key thing is I
want it to be served warm, not cold (or even room temperature). So I'll put
it to the newsgroup : which one of these would you think would be the best
warm? I'm not asking you to identify the ones which would turn out better
served warm instead of cold - rather, taking the fact that they'd be warm
as a given, which would you most want? Please - "Yes" isn't an answer (or
at least, it isn't a very informative answer).

Chocolate Decadence: that dense, more-or-less flourless chocolate "cake" -
generally served in narrow wedges with raspberry sauce. Warm, this is a bit
like eating chocolate truffles that somehow have been made warm without
them melting.

Fallen Chocolate Cake : the one usually baked in individual ramekins and
served partly baked, so that the outside is like a cake but the center is
still liquid batter. Always served warm.

My "Hyper-Chocolatey Brownies" (see recipe posted on DejaNews). Warm, these
take on the characteristics of something of a cross between a steamed
chocolate pudding, a cake, and very potent chocolate fudge.

Chocolate Mousse cake : for a reference see Cook's Illustrated December
2002. This is like a fluffy version of Chocolate Decadence. I tweak the
recipe slightly, sugar going down to 1/2 cup, chocolate up to 14 oz. It
goes without saying that I use a much better chocolate than the Hershey's
Special Dark that CI recommends (what's with that!?). Warm, this is a bit
like an extremely dense souffle - as if it's the result of an happy
accident whereby something went terribly wrong with an ordinary souffle but
ended up creating something terribly right.

Fudge-Nut pie : straight out of the February/March 2004 issue of
Chocolatier. I'd use hazelnuts instead of walnuts, however, because I
happen to like hazelnuts much better, and on the glaze I see no reason to
use corn syrup or hot water in the glaze - it's basically a ganache. So I'd
just make a good firm ganache and leave it like that. Never tried this
recipe, but it looks awesome. The mag recommends serving warm.

Now I suppose I've started a mad dash for the kitchen...

--
Alex Rast

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