Chocolate Chili Cake, Yum!

I am SO enjoying my Nesco Cooker!

So far, I've baked Seed Bread, a wonderful Apple Craisin Nut Bread, roasted a passel of root vegetables and made a full size pot roast with all the trimmings.

If I have any complaint, it's trying to find pans that fit into the cookers well. Now, you can always cook right in the removable non stick well, but that's not always what I want. So far, a regular size bread pan seems to be the best bet. What I need is a nice oval pan that just fits, but I'm sure I'll find it somewhere.

The bread pan has worked for both the regular bread and the apple bread, and right now I'm trying a Flourless Chili Chocolate Cake.

Does this sound wonderful or what?

As usual, I don't have all the exact ingredients.

I'm missing Chipotle Chili Powder, but since we are deep in the heart of chili country, I'm using Chimayo Chili Powder. Made from a unique strain of chili grown in New Mexico, it is slightly sweeter than the general chili powder.

More of as torte than a cake (since there is no flour), this has a distinctive texture.

Chili Chocolate Cake (No Flour)

10 oz of Semi Sweet Chocolate, roughly chopped
7 Tbsp room temperature Butter
5 large Eggs, room temperature
1 cup of Sugar
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
3/4 tsp Chipotle Chili Powder
a dash of Cayenne Pepper
a pinch of Salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (preheating the oven is always a critical step)
Melt the butter and chocolate in a double boiler
Whisk the eggs, then add the sugar

Slowly add the butter/chocolate into the sugar/egg mixture.

Add the spices and check for flavor.
Pour into a 9 inch spring form pan and bake for 22-25 minutes
Sprinkle with powdered sugar if you like (I like!).

This is the recipe as posted, but I did change a few things.

While the recipe calls for ten ounces of chocolate, the package I bought was eight ounces, so that's what I used. Sort of like you get ten hot dogs in a pack, but only eight buns come in a bag. I ask you, who decides these things?

Because we like things a bit on the intense side, I doubled the amounts for the cinnamon and chili powder. Keep in mind that I'm not a big fan of hot, but I do like spicy. There's a huge difference and I try to achieve a nice strong flavor in my cooking without extreme heat.

When adding the chocolate into the egg mixture, I first added some of the egg mixture into the chocolate, to temper the batter (you really don't want those eggs to scramble).

While the recipe calls for a 9 inch spring form pan, I was using my Nesco Cooker, so I used a bread pan. This totally changed the cooking time since the batter was much thicker in the pan. I had to bake it for 65 minutes, and it still wasn't completely set in the middle, but I didn't want the edges to burn, so I took it out to cool.

Maybe this is one of those baking recipes that REALLY needs to be baked in the correct pan in a regular oven? I'll try it that way when the weather isn't in the high nineties.

While it certainly didn't look like a gourmet dessert (hence no picture), it tasted really good, rich, with just a bit of after heat. Next time I'll make sure we have some fresh whipped cream or ice cream to go with it!

Since I've been cooking so much lately, I decided to reorganize my spice pantry. I was so pleased with myself, I took this photo.


Now I can remember what it looks like when it's all nice and clean, instead of the normal jumble I usually have to dig through in order to cook dinner!

These simple pleasures are truly the best.

Life is Good.