Soft Chocolate Raspberry Tart

Let's talk about nine-inch spring-form cake pans. I think I mentioned earlier that I have six. This is partly an accident, and partly because I think they are the most useful baking tool in existence. When I was in college, I only had one cake pan. I made everything in it--cake, cheesecake, brownies. And, very importantly, I found that they make excellent substitutes for removable bottom tart pans. I bet you could even make a pie in one, but that's a little beside the point. The point is that my wealth of nine-inch spring-form pans means that when I come across  a recipe like this chocolate raspberry tart, I don't need to worry that I don't own a tart pan.

Chocolate and raspberry is possibly my favorite flavor combination (besides maybe mushrooms and port). For years I've tried to find a dessert that really melds the flavors. I've found chocolate cakes and chocolate tortes with a little raspberry jelly in the middle, and while that sounds delicious, I was looking for something more exciting. I was shocked to find this recipe, lying nonchalantly inside a book I've had for years. I had to make it at the first possible opportunity. It actually went very well with this brunch--the meal itself had a lot of fresh and light flavors, which allowed for something a little richer for dessert.

Peach Melba Cake with Raspberry Cream

In retrospect, this may have been a mistake. A luscious, moist, peach-filled, raspberry-frosted mistake, but a mistake nonetheless. Objectively, I should not be making three layer cakes that require two separate sessions in the refrigerator and need to be ready at eleven o'clock on a Sunday morning. But...I did it anyway, and now I really can't bring myself to be upset about it.

There's something so rewarding about making tall cakes. That is one reason I love this book, which probably started my obsession with cake. The other reason this book is about four notches above most other cookbooks, especially cake books, is that every cake is completely different. There is no standard white cake or standard chocolate cake. Each cake has its own method and its own strange additional ingredients, and each one is absolutely outstanding. This one, for example, has no butter in the batter (Betty Botter did not make this cake). Instead, it starts out as whipped cream, to which you add eggs, yolks, sugar, and vanilla. It was like making cake out of ice cream. The filling and the frosting are whipped cream based, too, but the whole thing felt very light. And, fresh from the fridge, it is just the thing for a hot, hot day in July.