Chocolate… Espresso… Fudge… Cake!

Some time ago, I became aware of the amazing (and now infamous in my household) Marcel Desaulniers.
Mr. Desaulniers is pretty much the most amazing gourmet chocolate chef ever to write chocolate cookbooks and own a restaurant called the Trellis. And have a French people mustache. Perhaps the only, too.
Anyway, I checked out two of his insanely wonderful books, the two being Celebrate with Chocolate, and the other being Death By Chocolate. Did you know that Marcel enjoys chocolate?
However, my attempts at being a gourmet chocolatier were foiled by two things: Schnapps, and Salmonella. In Celebrate With Chocolate, I was not able to create ‘Dancing Gingerbread Men with Spicy Peppermint Fudge Cake’, because it called for a small amount of Schnapps, but this is a particularly expensive sort of alcohol… so my plans were ruined by that one ingredient. But from the cookbook Death By Chocolate, I successfully got my mother to make with me…
CHOCOLATE ESPRESSO FUDGE CAKE!!!
It was an experience that will never happen again, and that I will never forget, and that’s for sure. Mother and I toiled for two and a half hours attempting to create a perfect cake. We sort of failed in the looks department, but in the taste section, well, no one will be able to stop this cake from coming back in particularly wonderful dreams. It’s just that good.
However, making it was not that simple. I learned, Monday night, that my mother is not a gourmet chef like Marcel Desaulniers. She did not enjoy making buttercream (which even our fancy friend explained ‘is buttercream from somewhere else to make, but buttercream from heaven when you eat it’) that required a pound of butter, 8 oz of semisweet chocolate, a cup of heavy whipping cream, and uncooked egg whites. At the latter mentioned, Colleen realized that uncooked egg whites can result in salmonella. She almost considered ditching our intense efforts and giving up, but we persevered, and so far, everyone has kept their cake down.
It seems that I won’t be making that ‘White and Dark Chocolate Dacquoise Meringue’ any time soon.