Happy Go Marni: Passover Chocolate Spice Cake

The cakes I'm most familiar with for Passover are sponge cakes. This Chocolate Spice Cake is no exception. If you're ever reading through a cake recipe for Passover and wondering how it will turn out, or what kind of cake it is, check the ingredients list and see if you have to separate a bunch of eggs. Whisking the egg whites to stiff peaks is a sign the cake will be light and airy and spongy.

Be sure also to gently fold those perfectly whipped egg whites into your batter rather than stir them in. If you're going to go to the trouble of painstakingly separating 10 eggs and then stand over the mixer and watch them like a hawk as they whip up and fill with air without overbeating, you'll kick yourself if you then carelessly stir them into your batter, thereby deflating them. So the key is, gently fold! Ok, I promise I won't lecture for the remainder of this post.

I love the flavor of this cake, featuring cloves and cinnamon along with the chocolate. It really doesn't need the toasted almonds, and my sister would actually insist that you don't add them in (since she's adamantly opposed to nuts in baked goods), but I appreciated the element of surprise in getting an occasional crunch in my mouthfuls. You'll see I drizzled a little glossy chocolate glaze on top. It's not called for in the recipe, but I had some left over from making the Macaroon Fudge Bars and I thought it looked pretty.

Potato starch is not the easiest thing to work with when greasing and "flouring" a pan during Passover as it tends to clump and not shake off if you hit the bottom of the pan. That was a frustrating experience. But all the more reason I decided to add that chocolate glaze on top to hide some of the pockets created by excess potato starch. I used a pastry brush to flick away some of the extra but at a certain point you just have to say c'est la vie and move on. Your guests won't even notice. It's good practice in the kitchen to turn off your perfectionist tendencies now and then (oh, am I describing myself?). Good luck with that!

Passover Chocolate Spice Cake
Recipe by Marcy Goldman in A Treasury of Jewish Holiday Baking
Makes 10 servings

10 eggs, separated
2 cups sugar
1/3 cup Passover wine or warm coffee
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon plus a pinch of salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 1/3 cups matzoh cake meal
1/4 cup potato starch, plus extra for pan
1 1/4 cups finely chopped toasted almonds

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line a 10-inch tube or angel food pan with parchment paper. Lightly grease and dust the sides with potato starch.

In a medium bowl, beat the egg yolks with 1 1/4 cups of the sugar until very thick and pale yellow, about 5 to 7 minutes. Stir in the wine or coffee, the cocoa powder, salt, cloves, and cinnamon. Stir in the matzoh cake meal, potato starch, and the chopped almonds.

In another large bowl, with clean, dry beaters, gently whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt to break them up. Increase the speed to high, and, gradually dusting in the remaining 3/4 cup sugar, beating until the whites are stiff and glossy but not dry. Briskly and thoroughly fold about one third of the beaten whites into the yolk mixture to lighten it. Then, in 2 separate batches, fold in the remaining egg whites, taking care not to deflate the egg whites but to blend the batter properly.

Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 55 minutes, or until the cake springs back when gently touched. Cool by inverting onto a serving plate. Cake will unmold itself as it cools.

Step-by-Step in Pictures

Beat the egg yolks with sugar...