Boca Negra

Boca Negra, which translates to “black mouth” in Spanish, is what’s in store for whoever takes more than a bite of this rich, decadent chocolate dessert.  The recipe comes courtesy of Lora Brody, whose other contributions to Baking With Julia include several varieties of bread.  For Tuesdays With Dorie, our baker/hostess this week is Cathy of A Frederick Food Garden.  The full recipe and method can be found on her blog post.  The collected efforts of the TWD group are collected here.

Boca Negra consists of a very moist, fudgy, and nearly flour-less cake paired with a white chocolate sauce.  Both include a lot of chocolate… 12 ounces each, and both are spiked with bourbon.  Otherwise, the ingredient list proves rather spare, so it makes sense to use the best chocolate you can find, and ideally a good bourbon in the sauce; the cake’s bourbon is boiled and then baked, so it’s wise not to use your best stuff there.

I started by making the White Chocolate sauce on Sunday evening; apparently it improves with a day or more of fridge time.  Generally speaking my preferred Chocolate is Callebaut from Belgium.  However there’s something about their White Chocolate that I don’t like… a caramel-like, cooked milk taste.  It’s also more than a bit too sweet.  Valrhona ditches the cooked milk flavors, though is still rather sweet.  My favorite is E. Guittard White Chocolate, which comes in a fancy 1 lb. box.  The E. Guittard is harder to find, so I used the Valrhona Ivoire I picked up at Surfas over Christmas.  For the booze, I poured from a prized bottle of Jefferson’s Reserve.

On Tuesday I tackled the actual cake.  For the sugar-bourbon syrup I went down-market with some donated Jim Beam.  I had a bit of trouble melting all the chocolate and butter and ended up finishing the job over a bain marie.  Otherwise the batter came together rather quickly.

Lacking a roasting pan, I placed my filled cake pan in 12″ cast iron skillet.  Heeding the advice of a fellow baker, I baked my Boca Negra longer than 30 minutes.  I never did get a dry top, though it was definitely not wet when it exited the oven after about 40 minutes.  With a parchment above and below, the cake unmolded easily, though a short section of edge stayed in the pan.

As it was a good three hours between baking the cake and eating, I warmed slices up before dolloping chilled White Chocolate Cream.  Given the bourbon in both cake and sauce, I figured it would be only fair to pair the Boca Negra with a bit of bourbon on the side.