A Drunken Sailor's Chocolate Cake

This arresting title caught my attention recently in a newspaper food column … I think it was in the Wall Street Journal’s weekly Food & Drink section … not only for its colourful heading but also because it had two of my favourite cooking ingredients – rum and chocolate – both in plentiful quantities.

Emily Luchetti

The recipe was credited to Emily Luchetti who I subsequently discovered was the pastry chef at the legendary Star’s Restaurant in San Francisco during that institution's halcyon days in the 1980’s and 90’s.  
  

(Emily Luchetti is now a celebrated author and TV chef as well as Dean at the International Culinary Centre in California.)

Jeremiah Tower

At the time Stars co-owner & head chef Jeremiah Tower reigned supreme as one of America’s most accomplished and flamboyant chefs who helped to usher in both the rise of the celebrity chef and the birth of so called ‘California Cuisine’.  One critic described Jeremiah Tower as  “the man who once reigned as California's most creative chef and presided over the biggest party in San Francisco during the height of the greed-is-good '80s.”

Star’s was a magnet for celebrities across America and beyond with regular guests including Rudolph Nureyev, Luciano Pavarotti, Sophie Loren, Liza Minnelli, one of the early supermodels Lauren Hutton, the actor Danny Kaye and Mikhail Gorbachev.   More importantly the restaurant helped pave the way for the emphasis on regional cuisine and fresh, local ingredients and a finely executed blend of traditional Western & Asian ingredients & recipes that are now the hallmarks of modern cuisine across America and around the world.    Some of Tower's recipes early in the history of Star's included Grilled Fennel Sausage with Rangpur Lime & Orange-Cumin Salt, Grilled Shellfish with Grilled Garlic & Ancho Chili & Herb Butter Sauces, and one of Pavarotti's favourites Golden Oyster Mushroom Timbale.

Somehow I misplaced the original article on the Drunken Sailor’s Chocolate Cake but not before I had noted down the reference to Chef Luchetti’s cookbook “Stars Desserts”.   The book was published in 1991 and is now out of print but I managed to track down a copy through AbeBooks, a second-hand and antiquarian book site for bookshops in the US, Canada, Britain and Australia that boasts a data base of 35 million books.

The recipe has the classic chocolate cake ingredients – butter, flour, eggs and cooking chocolate – but what sets it apart is the amount of rum ... two thirds of a cup in the original recipe , though I have used upto 1 cup for an extra seafarer's hit … which obviously contributed to the “Drunken Sailor” tag in the title.

However, despite the amount of rum in the recipe the overall texture is rich and chocolatey and has been a big hit in our house and at dinner parties for both young and old ... I'm really talking about Zia and Juhee here!

Recipe:   The Drunken Sailor’s Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:

170 grams dark cooking chocolate, coarsely chopped   140 grams butter   2/3 cup dark rum (I have used upto 1 cup)   4 eggs, separated   1 ¼ cups sugar   1 cup plain flour   Pinch salt

plus a 20cm cake pan, preferably with removable base

For Chocolate Glaze:

1 cup heavy cream     225 grams dark cooking chocolate, coarsely chopped

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 C.   Butter the cake tin & line bottom with greaseproof paper.   Melt chocolate, butter and rum … either in microwave in short bursts or in top half of doubleboiler.   Cool to lukewarm

Combine egg yolks and ½ C plus 3 Ts of the sugar in mixing bowl.   Whip with mixer until thick.    Lower mixer speed & add chocolate & then flour & salt.

Whip egg whites in separate bowl (after cleaning mixer blades) until frothy.    Then increase speed of mixer and whip till soft peaks form.   Add remaining sugar & continue beating until stiff.      Fold in 1/3 of whites into chocolate batter and then fold in the rest.   Pour into prepared pan.

Bake for 30 to 35 mins until cake feels firm, or a skewer comes out clean when inserted.   Leave to cool for 10 minutes then if using pan with removable base remove cuff from side of cake and cool further.   Otherwise just invert cake tin onto a wire rack.

To make the chocolate glaze put cream in medium size saucepan & bring to boil over high heat.   Remove from heat and then whisk in chocolate until smooth.

Cool glaze to room temperature and then glaze the cake … either just the top or both top and sides.   Allow glaze to set for at least an hour before cutting and serving.   Serve with cream, yogurt, ice cream or fresh fruit.

Enjoy!

Tony saab from Hyderabad
March 2017