How I Cheered Myself up About Not Already Having this Baby

I am more of a Francophile than an Anglophile (note the title of this blog).

However, I am excited about the royal wedding coming up. This is probably because I am the same age as the prince and the right age to have been reading a certain type of magazine *cough cough Tiger Beat cough cough* when it featured photos of him. . I may have played out a few royal wedding scenarios in my head involving Prince William (hey, no hard feelings, Wills. I got myself a good man). I might be even be planning to wake myself up to watch the Royal Wedding, if I weren't 9 months pregnant, when sleep is a very precious commodity.

If, however, the following conditions apply:

a) I am up at 5 am anyway, and

b) I am still pregnant and not in the hospital, and

c) I have not eaten all of the cake in a depressed frenzy because of condition (b),

Then I shall have a slice of this:

Chocolate Biscuit Cake

~1 stick butter, plus a little for greasing the pan

~8 oz Rich Tea Biscuits

Not the same as digestive biscuits, although those are delicious. I found a brand called Lyons at our international food store. Check out the British section. You might find McVittie’s Tea Biscuits or Lu Tea Biscuits.

~1 c. sugar

~16 oz +8 oz good dark chocolate—about 60%--cut into small pieces.

I used half nice quality semi-sweet chips, which I think are about 50%, and half fancy 70% bar chocolate. You could go a little lighter, but I wouldn’t recommend milk chocolate.

~2 beaten eggs

~¾ c. cream

~Grease a springform pan.

~Break biscuits into small pieces (Bite-sized, but don’t crush them. I’d just break them by hand).

~Melt butter and 16 oz chocolate over a double-boiler. Stir in the sugar. Give it time to melt.

My sugar didn’t really melt, it stayed kinda grainy, but it still tasted good. I might not have let it get hot enough in the double boiler. It didn't ruin the cake by any means.

~Add the beaten eggs and stir constantly, removing the top of the boiler from the heat.

Don’t let them scramble. I left it on the heat for a bit because I am careful about raw eggs right now, but if you prefer you can take it off the heat before you add the eggs.

~Stir in the biscuit pieces until well-coated. It will be very lumpy. That’s okay. Pour it into the greased pan and refrigerate it until it’s set, at least a couple of hours or overnight.

Once the cake has set:

~Rinse out a small saucepan and pour out the water without drying it.

This will keep the cream from scalding on the bottom of the pan.

~Bring the cream to a boil over medium heat, watching carefully and stirring. Pour over the remaining 8 oz. of chocolate, stirring constantly with a fork, and then using a whisk once the chocolate is melted. ~Allow to cool for about 10 minutes.

~Pour over the top of the cake (without de-molding it). This will fill in the cracks and gaps and give it a nice shiny top.

That’s why I did a ganache instead of melted chocolate. Looks prettier and fills in the gaps more fluffily. A few lumps might show through. If this bothers you, close your eyes when you eat it. But don’t count on your slice still being there--you might end up stabbing at the air with your fork.

~Allow to cool in fridge for another couple of hours before removing the outer ring. Serve in small wedges and refrigerate any leftovers.

*I adapted this heavily from another recipe. This other recipe did not make nearly enough chocolate filling to cover the biscuits, and it used melted chocolate instead of ganache over the top. So I didn’t make it up and am not gonna try to make money off it, but I’m not going to give credit to a recipe where the proportions were all wrong either.