Last October, my friend Joel, his wife Sally, my husband Jeff & I* put on a wonderful five course beer/wine dinner. You could read about this adventure if the &*$%!ing Internet hadn't eaten my late, lamented blog "Drink Beer Think Beer." (I have bounced back nicely but really, I have Internet Trust issues now and will never be the same.) Suffice it to say that we had an awesome time.

One of the courses that I made was dessert. I made a flourless chocolate cake that I had brought to Passovers past and always got a good reaction from. We paired it with Jeff's homemade raspberry porter beer and it brought a beer - er, tear - to your eye! Joel asked if I would bring the cake to his Seder, and I said that of course I would. No beer on Passover, but we could still have the cake, darn it!

This cake recipe is from the blog of my friend & fellow lady food blogger Noelle but of course I had to, er, fudge** something up, so here is my saga.

I was shopping at Hiller's and was standing in the chocolate/baking aisle. My shopping list said "chocolate for Passover cake," but, in my infinite wisdom, I had neglected to say what kind of chocolate and how much. I could have used these recent inventions that you might have heard of, called cell phones***, but I had left mine in the car so I couldn't call Jeff. So I stood there for a minute and then picked up one four-ounce bar of unsweetened chocolate and one four-ounce bar of bittersweet chocolate.

This turned out to be semi-smart because when I got home and checked the recipe, it called for 7 ounces of bittersweet. Well, I had the 7 ounces part covered, but only half of it was bittersweet. Despite my Internet Trust issues, I went to the Internet and asked it if I could substitute unsweetened chocolate for bittersweet chocolate. You can, and I did. You just need to put in half an ounce of unsweetened chocolate for every one ounce of bittersweet plus 1 tablespoon of sugar for every 1 ounce of bittersweet that you are replacing.

That there above probably makes absolutely no sense, so let me put it another way (this is called differentiated instruction, for those not in the education field), and let's involve the whole class in this endeavor, shall we?

The recipe called for seven ounces of bittersweet, so I put in my 4 ounces of bittersweet.
Okay, so 7 minus 4 is....good job! 3. I like how you answered that so quickly! I still owed it 3 oz.

So now I had to put half an ounce of unsweetened for every one ounce of bittersweet...we have how many ounces of bittersweet left? 3! Super! Now remember how I always tell you that you really do use math in real life? (You don't remember cuz you're not in my class? Just go with it, people!) Here we go. Half of 3 is...don't use your fingers, you can do this. 1.5! Good job! I like how Jessica helped Mary there...nice. Stop biting your nails, you know that drives me nuts (I have a kid who does that, and it does drive me nuts). So how many ounces of unsweetened do we need? 1.5! Right on.

Now we also need 1 tablespoon of sugar for every ounce of bittersweet that we are replacing. How many ounces of bittersweet should we have used? 3, so...how many tablespoons....? 3! Yes sir! Awesome. Hold up the number of fingers there...there you go. Sweet.

To recap, I put in the 4 ounces of bittersweet, 1.5 ounces of unsweetened and 3 tablespoons of sugar and it turned out awesome! Even better than the 7 ounces of bittersweet, if I do say so myself!

(The pictures that I took didn't come out, so please close your eyes and imagine the most beautiful chocolate flourless cake you've ever seen.)

Recipe:
7 ounces of bittersweet chocolate (one way or the other!)
7 ounces of butter
1 cup of sugar
4 eggs, separated

1. Melt the butter and chocolate over low heat. Be careful and stir it so it doesn't burn.
2. In your stand mixer, mix up half the sugar and the egg whites. As it mixes, add the rest of the sugar.
3. Once the chocolate is melted and has cooled, add the egg yolks. STIR because you don't want the eggs to cook (they shouldn't if you cooled properly, but I've seen it happen).
4. Now you need to mix the chocolate and the sugar/eggs. Take a dollop of the chocolate and put it into the stand mixer. Add a dollop at a time until everything is mixed up.
5. Pour batter into a greased 8-inch cake pan and bake for about 40 minutes at 375. The cake will puff up a bit and then kind of cave in. This is nothing to be alarmed about.
6. Sprinkle fresh fruit (I've used raspberries and blueberries) and/or powdered sugar or just start eating it with your bare hands.
7. Enjoy!

* That sounds like the name of a bad 70s movie about key parties
**I didn't really say fudge.
***They have movies you can rent and watch at home now too! What will they come up with next!?

Despite Internet Trust issues, Patti Smith continues to blog , use Facebook & Twitter and ask the Internet for answers.