This is the recipe I raved about on a recent podcast. As you can see, I marked it with an A+ the first time I made it.

This recipe is originally from September 1999 issue of Country Living and is not available on line. In September 1999 I was one month away from being a married woman.

So apparently my love for cooking started before I was a wife. Who knew?

Makes 8 Servings

Cake:
5 large eggs
8 1-oz bittersweet chocolate squares or bars (compare the top brands here)
1/2 C butter
2/3 C sugar
2/3 C ground almonds

Chocolate ganache:
6 1-oz bittersweet chocolate squares or bars
1/2 C heavy cream

1. Prepare cake. Heat oven to 350. Grease an 8-inch springform pan. Separate eggs, placing whites in a medium bowl, and yolks in a large bowl; bring to room temperature.

2. Melt the 8 1-oz bars of chocolate in a bowl in the microwave (cook on high 1 minute at a time until melted. Do not over cook). Set aside to cool.

3. With electric mixer on high speed, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Set egg whites aside. Using same beaters, beat egg yolks and sugar until thick and light yellow–about 5 minutes.

4. Stir almonds and chocolate mixture into yolk mixture. (Make sure chocolate is not too hot or you will scramble the eggs!) Using a rubber spatula, fold egg whites into a chocolate-almond mixture. Pour batter evenly into pan.

5. Bake until cake springs back when gently touched with finger, appox. 20-25 minutes. Cool 10 minutes on wire rack. Remove ring from springform pan and let cake cook 10 minutes more on wire rack.

6. Prepare chocolate ganache: Melt 6 1-oz squares of chocolate and 1/2 C of heavy cream in microwave for one minute at a time, until entirely melted. Combine well. You can also do this in a double boiler but the microwave is a lot easier.

7. Slice cake and transfer to plates. Pour chocolate ganache over cake. YUM.