TWD: Chocolate Armagnac Cake!

This week’s TWD was chosen by Lyb of And then I do the dishes: chocolate armagnac cake! When I’ve flipped through the book, this cake has always caught my eye but more for the backstory than the recipe itself. Dorie affectionately refers to this cake as the cake that got her fired. At her first job in a professional kitchen, she got bored with making the same old cake everyday (chocolate whiskey-raisin cakes) so she decided to substitute prunes soaked in Armagnac for the whisky raisins. Needless to say, the owner fired her….a move I’m sure she regrets now 🙂

I decided to scale the recipe down and make the cake in my 4 inch springform pan. We’ve had so many sweets around here lately between Valentine’s Day candy and my birthday that I couldn’t imagine another full-sized chocolate cake in the house! The recipe for this cake is fairly simple, though it does make a ton of dirty dishes! It actually reminded me of making brownies, but with a few extra steps. I went with the original recipe (raisins soaked in scotch) for my cake, but more because it’s what I had on hand and not because I was opposed to using prunes.

We tried the cake after dinner tonight and I really expected to like it. I mean, what’s not to like about chocolate cake? Unfortunately, Dorie and I just haven’t been on the same page these past few weeks. I didn’t love this cake. It was just ok for me. It was a bit too rich and I really didn’t like the glaze. I think I’ll just have to stick with brownies instead!

Many thanks to Lyb for her choice this week. You can find the recipe for the cake on her blog and, as always, you can see how the rest of the TWD bakers’ cakes turned out by checking out the TWD blogroll!