Suzy's Cake ~ #TheCake Slice Bakers

If you are in the mood for the best French chocolate cake that only requires five ingredients and 

is super easy to put together, check out Suzy's Cake which has high praise from Pierre Hermé.

The Cake Slice Bakers continue to bake through - Gâteau: The Surprising Simplicity of French Cakes by Aleksandra Crapanzano this year. Aleksandra, a James Beard Award–winning writer, shares her secrets of the cakes Parisians like to bake at home. Recipes such as a simple yogurt cake, a surprisingly easy Bûche De Noël, and Walnut Pear and Roquefort Madeleines will show you the surprising simplicity of a French cake.

The Cake Slice Bakers are a group of dedicated bakers who all love cake. Each year we choose a new cake-centric cookbook and bake our way through it. Every month we are given 3 choices and on the 20th day of each month we reveal what we have chosen on our blogs. This month's choices were Suzy's Cake, Rum Baba, and Walnut, Pear and Roquefort Madeleines. I was totally leaning towards baking the Rum Baba, but work has been insanely busy so I just felt like some chocolate, and decided to bake Suzy's Cake (aka Gâteau Suzy).

This cake is such an easy cake to bake, and the fact that you can bake it and keep it for up to 72 hours before serving makes it the perfect dessert is you are having friends/family over, or it you just happen to be craving chocolate.  Keep an eye on it in the oven, especially if your oven runs hot, so that you do not overbake it.  As I only had an 8-inch cake pan I had to make some adjustments to the baking time, and I feel like I did slightly overbake it which made it a little dry.  This was totally on me and not anything to do with the recipe.  I'll definitely invest in a larger cake pan so that I can try it again. Honestly, when Pierre Hermé declare a chocolate cake "meilleur gâteau au chocolat du monde", which he did with this one, then you know it is a winner.

Suzy's Cake

Printer Friendly Recipe

Ingredients

• 250g (8.8 ounces) dark chocolate
• 255g butter (1 cup plus 2 tablespoons), at room temperature
• 225g (1 cup plus 2 tablespoons) granulated sugar, 
• 4 large eggs, at room temperature
• 70g (½ cup plus 1 tablespoon) cake flour

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 180℃ (350℉).
2. Butter a 23cm (9-inch) cake pan and dust with cocoa, and lay a round of parchment paper on the bottom.
3. Melt the chocolate in a double-boiler, remove from the heat, and set aside to cool a bit (it should be warm and still pourable, but not hot, when used).
4. In a stand mixer or using handheld electric beaters at medium-high speed, cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy.
5. One by one, with the mixer still running add the eggs, mixing until just combined.
6. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the melted chocolate, mixing until  just combined.
7. Using a rubber spatula, fold in the cake flour until no streaks of white remain.
8. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 25-28 minutes (the cake is done when the surface is matte and the sides have started to shrink away from the pan and a cake tester inserted into the center comes out with a few streaks of batter - in other words you are purposefully undercooking this cake).
9. Transfer to a cooling rack.  Once at room temperature, cover loosely with aluminum foil and refrigerate for at least an hour.
10. Invert onto a cake plate and allow to come to room temperature and serve with a dollop of crème fraîche or whipped cream.
11. If not eating this cake the day it is made, wrap it in plastic once it is cool and keep refrigerated for up to 72 hours, returning it to room temperature prior to serving.

Each month The Cake Slice Bakers are offered a selection of cakes from the current book we are baking through. This year it is Gâteau: The Surprising Simplicity of French Cakes by Aleksandra Crapanzano. We each choose one cake to bake, and then on the 20th - never before - we all post about our cake on our blogs. There are a few rules that we follow, but the most important ones are to have fun and enjoy baking & eating cakes!

Follow our Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest pages where you can find all of our cakes, as well as inspiration for many other cakes. You can also click on the links below to take you to each of our cakes. If you have a blog and are interested in joining The Cake Slice Bakers and baking along with us, please send an email to thecakeslicebakers at gmail dot com for more details.

The Cake Slice Bakers also have a new Facebook group called The Cake Slice Bakers and Friends. This group is perfect for those who do not have a blog but want to join in the fun and bake through this book.

It is a new year and a new book - Gâteau: The Surprising Simplicity of French Cakes - and our choices for October 2023 were ~

Suzy's Cake

• All That's Left Are The Crumbs
• My Recipe Reviews
• A Little Bit of All Right

Rum Baba

• Karen's Kitchen Stories

Walnut, Pear and Roquefort Madeleines

• A Day in the Life on the Farm