New Year’s Eve dinner required a special dessert to eat by the fireplace after a satisfying lobster dinner. Chocolate Almond Raspberry Mocha Cake sounded like it would be the pinnacle of desserts for this special evening. This contains a few revisions of Julia Child’s Reine de Saba otherwise known as Chocolate and almond cake. I’ve made this before exactly as written, but I wanted to incorporate raspberry flavor in the recipe. Chocolate and raspberry are such a fabulous combination that causes you to close your eyes and melt in nirvana.
To start with, I had a 4 ounce box of semi-sweet baking chocolate. Julia’s recipe called for rum or coffee. Kahlua is a perfect replacement as you get the best of both worlds, not to mention there was an unopened bottle in the cabinet. I placed them in the microwave in a glass measuring cup for about a minute, Make sure you stir until smooth!
Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy and light yellow in color. Add eggs one at a time, incorporating well after each addition, scraping sides of bowl as needed.
Beat egg whites until soft peak are formed. Add a tablespoon of sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks form.
Add the melted chocolate into creamed mixture, blending until uniform in color. Follow this with the addition of the almond flour and espresso powder if you want a little more punch to the chocolate flavor.Julia used pulverized almonds as did I the first time I made it, but I had recently bought some almond flour to make macaroons which I found out is the same thing, so that save me time and a little cleanup. Win! win!
On low spread, gently fold in a 1/4 of the egg whites followed by about 2 tablespoons of the cake flour. Continue to alternate the remainder of these two ingredients until well incorporated.
Place batter in a prepared 8″ round cake pan. It is thick, but spread out and level to edges of pan.
After baking, cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Run a knife around the edges and flip over to continue to cool for about an hour or two before icing.
Place a generous amount of seedless raspberry fruit spread or jam over the top of the cake. Allow it to soak in a little before icing.
For the icing, melt the chocolate chips and Kahlua in microwave for about a minute. Stir until well blended and smooth.
Blend in 1 tablespoon of butter at a time until well incorporated. Place bowl in a larger bowl with ice water. Whisk icing. As it cools, the icing will take on a spreadable consistency as shown in pictures below. (The glossy look is the seedless raspberry fruit spread.)
Spread icing outward and down to the sides, leveling as you go.Gently press sliced almonds on the sides then on outer edges of the top with any extra almonds. The next two pics, also seen at the top of the post, were the most recent attempt at this cake for our 10th anniversary! I placed a heart-shaped cookie cutter in the middle and gently pressed the almonds around it. Our wedding cake was a chocolate and raspberry combination. With some different lighting applied, these shots look so much better. Perhaps I’ll have to make another to update the other pics. But for now, I’m just spending my time savoring every luscious bite of this cake.
Slice and enjoy this rich and decadent Chocolate Almond Raspberry Mocha Cake with your love for any special occasion.
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 9-12
- Chocolate Cake:
- 4 oz. semi-sweet chocolate baking bar
- 2 T. Kahlua or strong coffee(espresso)
- ½ c. butter(1 stick), room temperature
- ⅔ c. sugar
- 3 large eggs, room temperature, separated
- ⅛ t. salt
- 1 T. sugar
- ⅓ c. almond flour
- 1 t. espresso powder
- ½ t. raspberry extract or raspberry liqueur
- ½ c. cake flour
- ½ c. spreadable seedless raspberry fruit/jam~I used Polaner brand, but a seedless jam would work fine.
- Icing:
- 6 oz. Semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 2 T. Kahlua or strong coffee(expresso)
- 1 t. espresso powder
- 6 T. unsalted butter
- sliced almonds
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Butter and flour 8" cake pan or layer bottom with parchment paper and use Baker's Joy spray.
- Microwave in a glass bowl the chocolate along with the (Kahlua or espresso/strong coffee) for 1 minute. Stir until smooth and no pieces of chocolate are visible.
- Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy and light yellow color. Scrape sides of bowl as needed.
- Separate the eggs. blend in 1 egg yolk at a time into sugar mixture.
- In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until soft peaks form.
- Add 1 T. of sugar to the egg whites and continue to beat until stiff peaks form.
- Blend in the melted chocolate until uniform in color, scraping sides frequently.
- Next, mix in almond flour with expresso powder.
- Fold in ¼ of beaten egg whites alternately with cake flour, scraping sides until uniformly blended.
- Place the batter into the prepared cake pan. Spread out evenly making sure batter touches inner sides of pan.
- Bake for about 22-25 minutes. Cake is done when toothpick entered about 2-1/2-3" from the outer edge comes out clean. Center should be a little wet still.
- Cool cake on rack for 10 minutes. Run a knife along edges of cake pan before turning over on rack.
- Microwave about ½ cup of seedless raspberry jam to help make it easier to spread. Use a spatula to spread the desired amount over the top. Allow it to soak into the cake as it cools.
- After it cools (1- 2 hours), it should be ready to ice.
- Chocolate-Butter Icing:
- Stir Kahlua(or espresso/strong coffee) and espresso powder in a small glass bowl. Add chocolate and microwave for about 1 minute. Stir until combined and smooth in appearance.
- Whisk in butter, one tablespoon at a time, incorporating well after each addition.
- Place bowl in a larger bowl with ice water. Whisk until chocolate has cooled and reaches a spreading consistency.
- Place icing on the top of the cake and spread outward and down the sides with an off-set spatula, smoothing and leveling it out.
- Immediately take small handfuls of sliced almonds and gently press them into the sides. Place extra almonds on the top in a ring around outer edges.
- This is a rich, decadent cake, so a smaller slice would probably satiate you! Cut 9-12 slices per cake.
