Spicy Chocolate Cake--A work in progress

My friend Blair's birthday is five days after mine, and inspired by the success of the cake I made for my birthday, one of my favourite chocolate bars (Dolfin's dark chocolate with pink peppercorns) and his love of spicy food, I decided that I wanted to make him a spicy chocolate cake.

But where to start? Somehow I managed to stumble on this recipe by Clotilde of Chocolate and Zucchini, which served as the basis for my recipe. I then did a quick search online for mole (pronounced MOH-lay), which is a Mexican sauce that combines chili, chocolate and sometimes nuts and I also looked at other Mexican chocolate recipes. A lot of the recipes were overwhelming in terms of the ingredients, but I decided one thing I did need to go out and buy was ancho chili powder.

The ancho chili powder (left) was surprisingly easy to find; McCormick actually sells a bottled version, so it's available at virtually any grocery store. When compared to the chili powder I had at my house (right), the ancho chili powder tasted sweeter and smokier, and while it wasn't very spicy, the spice definitely hit quicker. (Although that may just be because the regular chili powder has been sitting in our kitchen for who knows how long) I also decided to add cinnamon to the cake.

The cake turned out really well; the near-lack of flour gave it an almost fudgy sort of texture. Unfortunately, I was a bit lighthanded with the spice, and although you can kind of taste it, I'm sure if I didn't know that it had spice in it I wouldn't have tasted it. I'll post the original recipe below, but make note that it's probably a good idea to up both the ancho chili powder and cinnamon.

Spicy Chocolate Cake
Largely based on Clotilde Dusoulier's Chocolate Chili Bites
Makes one round 8" cake

• 200 g (250 mL/1 cup) butter
• 200 g (7 oz) dark chocolate
• 250 g (300 mL/1¼ cup) sugar
• 5 eggs
• A rounded tbsp (20 mL) flour
• 10 mL (2 tsp) ancho chili powder*
• 5 mL (1 tsp) cinnamon*

1. Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F). Line an 8" cake pan with parchment paper.
2. Melt the butter with the chocolate in a large saucepan over low heat.
3. Remove saucepan from heat and add in the sugar; mix with a wooden spoon and let cool a little. Add the eggs one by one, mixing well with the spoon after each addition. Add a rounded tablespoon of flour, the chili powder and the cinnamon and mix well.
4. Bake for 25 minutes--it's ok if the centre is still trembling. Let cool a little before turning out onto a rack to cool completely (be careful, the cake is fragile!) Don't be surprised if the centre falls a little upon cooling.**

*Increase to taste
**Clotilde recommends that you wrap the cake tightly in plastic wrap, refrigerate and take it out an hour prior to eating. What I actually did was let the cake cool as much as it could in a springform pan before covering the thing with foil, poking some holes in it (I hate condensation) then walked outside for about 20 minutes in fairly cold weather to my friend's house. I think it sat at room temperature while we gorged ourselves at The Keg before serving—it was fine.