Eggless Reine de Saba or Chocolate Almond Cake

Reine De Saba (also known as Queen of Sheba) cake is a very rich chocolate cake. It has a chocolate cream icing and it looks picture perfect when decorated with the almonds. Nice color combination with almonds and chocolate contrasting each other. I got this recipe from the Baking Partners group and this cake was this month's recipe. The recipe is originally from the famous chef - Julia Child. As a honor to the cooking legend, posting her famous recipe on her 100th birthday. This cake is very delicate as it has very less flour and is little fragile when out of the oven. If you overcook it will NOT be creamy and rich. This cake is a challenge for me as I had to substitute many ingredients like egg, rum, cake flour, coffee, did not have an 8 inch pan which is the recommended size. So most of the ingredients are substituted!!! Generally in recipes if you are substituting one or two eggs, it is much easier than substituting 3 large eggs. Anyway I had a lot of good learning from this recipe and everybody loved this cake. This cake does not rise much like other cakes and is not much spongy but more rich, thick and densely chocolate. You taste chocolate, chocolate and chocolate!!!!.

Ingredients

Semi Sweet Chocolate - 4 ounces + 3 ounces
Butter - 80 grams + 4 table spoons (softened)
Oil - 35 grams
Egg Replacer (Ener G) - 1 table spoon
Warm water - 4 table spoons
Unsweetened Applesauce - 1/2 cup
Almonds Powder - 1/3 cup
Salt - A pinch
Sugar - 2/3 cup
Almond Extract - 1/4 tea spoon
All Purpose Flour - 1/2 cup minus 1 tea spoon
Corn Starch - 1 tea spoon
Baking Powder - 1/4 tea spoon
Grape Juice - 2 table spoons + 2 table spoons
Sliced Almonds - for garnish

 

Method
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C
Butter and Flour the cake pan well and set aside. This step is very key as the cake is very soft, so if you do not do this step well, your cake might get stuck to the pan
Using double boiler method - have a pan of simmering water and keep a heat proof bowl (preferably with handle) over the pan of simmering water. The bowl on top should have a wider mouth and be able to sit on the pan. The water in the pan below should not touch the top bowl
Add 4 ounces chocolate and 2 table spoons grape juice and stir continuously until the chocolate is 75% melted. Again make sure that you do not heat it until the chocolate is 100% melted as the heat in the mixture will melt the remaining chocolate when taken out at 75% itself. Allow this to cool
In another bowl, sieve together flour, corn starch, salt and baking powder.
Add the almonds powder to the dry ingredients and set aside
Add water to the egg replacer mixture and set aside for 5 minutes. Now beat it vigorously until the mixture becomes gooey
Beat the 80 grams of butter with sugar until creamy and fluffy. This takes a long time when done by hand. But this step is also key.
Once creamy, add oil, apple sauce and almond extract and mix well
Mix in the dry ingredients and once well mixed, take 1/2 of the egg replacer mixture (it will be like sponge) and gently fold it in to the batter. Once well folded, add the remaining mixture and fold it in gently until all mixed
Transfer the batter to the greased pan and bake it for around 25 minutes or until the toothpick inserted in the outer ring comes clean and inserted in center comes oily. The center will be little shaky, but the sides will be set.
Remove the pan from the oven and allow it to cool in the pan for at least 30 minutes.
Remove from the pan and allow it to cool completely before icing it. I kept it in the refrigerator for 1 hour and removed it for icing
For icing, have a bowl of ice cubes with water ready. The bowl should hold the double boiler top bowl that we are going to use to make the icing
In a double boiler, add 3 ounces of chocolate and 2 table spoons of grape juice and melt the chocolate until 75% and remove from heat.
Add butter (a tablespoon at a time) one by one to the melted chocolate and whisk thoroughly to combine and add the next butter piece only when the previous one is completely mixed in.
Now keep the bowl on the ice water and stir continuously until it comes to a soft butter consistency - spreadable consistency.
Pour the icing on the cake and gently smooth it on top and down to the sides also
garnish with sliced almonds and almond powder as per choice and refrigerate for and hour and serve!!

Sending this to Only - From the Royal Kitchen, Pari's page, CEDD - Chocolate, Cookeatdelicious, Jagruti's JCO Events Super Foods, Vardhini's Bake Fest hosted by Foodomania this month, Bon Viviant - Baked Goodies, Jacqueline from Tinned Tomatoes as host and mention Ruth from Ruth's Kitchen Experiments as founder of the challenge, Dish it out hosted by Foodomania, Spice n Sugar Tales - Cooking made easy with Chocolates