Introduction: Awesome Chocolate Cream Cake - Julia Child

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About: I like making different types of foods from all around the world! Check out my youtube channel too.

This is the best chocolate cake ever... period. Especially since it really is mostly made from chocolate. There is no flour in this cake, so that alone should give you an idea of how rich this cake is. Which also makes this cake gluten free too.

I suppose this cake has more of a brownie texture but without the chew. It is moist and creamy yet not heavy, served with whipped cream, this cake is just awesome. To say it's awesome does not do it justice tho.

This is supposed to be a Julia Child's recipe but I have had a hard time finding the provenance of this recipe in her book and online. Anyways I don't doubt it. The closet recipe I could find was her Queen of Sheba Cake but it has flour in it and is different in other ways as well. Regardless you need to try this cake!

Step 1: Ingredients


  • 1/4 cup Espresso or coffee (I've used brewed and instant)
  • 1/4 cup Cognac, Brandy or Rum
  • 1 Tablespoon pure vanilla extract
  • 1 Pound of semi or bitter sweet chocolate, broken into small pieces (Lindt dark chocolate is very good)
  • 6 Large Eggs
  • 1/2 Cup Granulated White Sugar
  • 2 Cups Heavy/Whipping Cream (35% fat)
  • 6 Tablespoons Icing Sugar

Step 2: Video of Making the Cake

Here is a video of making this awesome cake. The written instructions follow with some of my own tips.

Step 3: Method

  • Heat the oven to 350F.
  • Grease a 10" high sided springform cake pan and cut a circle of parchment paper to line the bottom. *Note: ideally use a springform pan as a regular cake pan will not yield optimal results when removing the cake from the pan later.
  • Have a roasting pan ready so the cake pan can fit into it later.
  • Heat two pots of water to simmer, these will be used to heat bowls in the following steps.
  • Combine the espresso, rum, vanilla and broken pieces of chocolate into a bowl that can be placed over one pot of water. Melt and combine the ingredients. Keep this warm over the water during the next step.
  • Break open the 6 eggs into very large mixing bowl with the sugar, place over the second pot of simmering water. Using a whisk, beat the eggs and sugar until it triples in volume and has the thickness of whipped cream. This is hard work on your arm so if you have a handheld mixer use it, this will speed this up a lot.
  • In another bowl take the whipping cream and beat it into whipped cream, combine with the icing sugar.
  • Fold in the melted chocolate mixture into the egg mixture with a spatula. Then fold in half of the whipped cream. Save the remaining whipped cream for serving later with the cake.
  • Pour the mixture into the cake pan. Place the cake pan into the roasting pan then place in the pre-heated oven. Then pour the hot water from the two pots of water into roasting pan, the water can come up sides of a regular cake pan. If using a springform pan place the pan on a wire rack so the water doesn't touch the bottom of the cake pan as some water can enter from the seam.
  • Bake for one hour. The cake should rise nicely, almost like a souffle.
  • Turn off the oven, open the door and let the cake settle back into the pan. Remove the cake from the oven then let cool.

If using a spring form pan, remove the sides, you can serve the cake directly from the bottom of the pan. I have made this cake using a regular pan and I found when trying to removing the cake was a real pain. Flipping the cake out of the pan and serving it bottom up doesn't look very nice in my opinion. So I think keeping the cake up right looks a lot nicer. Another option is to flip the cake out onto a flat cutting board then flipping it back over so the top is upright.

This cake is very delicate and has no structure to it, it just falls apart so you might need to get creative in how to serve it. Using a triangle cake serving knife is a must if you want to keep the pieces together.

The crust that forms on the top turns into a chewy candy like texture that when mixed with the creamy bottom of the cake is simply decadent and does not need nor should it be iced.

Serve it with whipped cream as the lightness contrasts really well with the richness of the cake.

This is the best chocolate cake!!!!