I would like to try Amedei Chuao chocolate in this recipe.

(Although that's also true, I wrote that mainly to catch the attention of
certain participants in this group ...)

Now to the real question:

I made a recipe for the first time a few days ago, and I'm trying to analyze
what happened, and I'm soliciting opinions.

I got the recipe from Germany.

Now, one reason I think I can get some opinions is that it's basically a
variation on your more or less classic flourless (or nearly so) chocolate
tortes, and so I think many of you will be familiar with the category and
something might catch your eye.

Here's the recipe:

1 20-cm. springform pan

200 g. bittersweet chocolate. I used 70%, so one question might be whether I
should have used a different one.

200 g. butter
250 g. sugar
5 eggs
1 tablespoon flour ("Essloeffel" in German)

Pre-heat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius. Melt butter and chocolate together
your favorite way - I did it in the microwave. Add the sugar, mix well, and
let the mixture cool somewhat. Add the eggs one by one, combining each
thoroughly before adding the next. Finally, add the flour and stir the
mixture until smooth.

Put into the form and bake for 22 minutes. The cake must still give when
gently touched in the middle with the forefinger. Take out of the oven,
immediately take out of the form, and let cool.

Okay, that's the recipe. As you can see, rather classic. In fact, it's
rather similar in general shape to my brownie recipe. And now, here's what
happened: at 22 minutes, the cake was still a great big mass of liquid. It
continued like that until finally at around 40 minutes, after even raising
the temperature a little bit in desperation, I finally felt I could take it
out.

And now the question: why did it take almost DOUBLE the time listed in the
recipe?

Before starting the discussion, I will add that the cake was pretty darned
good. So "all was well that ended well," in that sense. But I'd be very
interested in knowing why the recipe was seemingly so far off with respect
to timing.

Some considerations:

- the temperature? I measured the oven temperature with a thermometer, so I
*know* I was using the recommended temperature.

- the number of eggs? The mixture seemed awfully liquid after putting all
those eggs in there. It sure seems like a high number of eggs to me.

- the amount of flour? With one tablespoon of flour, this is nearly a
flourless cake. I wonder if that figured in it.

- I can't really believe the chocolate had anything to do with it. I used
the 70% from Novi. Nothing special, but it can't have affected the cooking
time so much.

- the stirring? In my brownie recipe, which I have remarked is similar, you
give the whole mixture a good strong 40 strokes with the wooden spoon at the
end before pouring into the form. I didn't do that here, and I suppose it
might have made some difference, but that much?

- something about the ratio of chocolate to butter?

Well, those are my thoughts. Anybody else like to venture an analysis?

John

P.S. And what about trying it with Amedei Chuao? ;-)