Le fondant au chocolat (French chocolate cake)

If you're looking for a dense chocolate cake, deep tasting and with a slightly thick but also moist texture (moist and dense would be the best way to describe it), this is it. Also very easy to make, keeps wonderfully well to snack on at every breakfast for three-four days in a row. It's lovely while hot and a little runny, but also cold from the fridge and served with more chocolate sauce, milk, coffee or an ice cream scoop. 
What we liked most about it is first of all how easy it is to make, then how well it keeps and how versatile it is, but most of all the special texture. The feel of sinking your teeth into a wedge of this cake is very dissimilar to the one you could get from other chocolate cakes. We recommend having it without frosting, just as pictured above and below. The taste of chocolate is not super-intense (like in a molten lava type of cake), but it's not meant to be so in the first place. Its charms lie in the texture, definitely. (A lot of American-style brownies brag about being "fudgy" in texture, but none of them are quite as fudgy as this classic French cake, I assure you).
The recipe is for any spring-form tin, from 24 cm to 28, but 28 works best because the thinner wedges are easier to nibble on (as thicker ones would tend to be too heavy or too chewy). But feel free to experiment. Enjoy :)

Recipe source: a very lovely French girl.

Last year on this date (today is also my birthday): Upside down pineapple cake (American).
Two years ago: Classic Pavlova (Australia and New Zealand).
Three years ago: Light and colorful field salad and Gottergetränk (Drink of the gods) (German hot chocolate drink).



Ingredients (for a 24 to 28 cm tin):

• 200g dark chocolate
• 240g butter
• 8 eggs
• 400g sugar
• 130g flour

Preheat oven to 170 degrees C and butter the springform tin. Melt the chocolate and butter together:

In a heatproof bowl, mix the sugar and eggs.

Using a whisk, mix them together gently over medium heat (or even better a bain marie), until they're not cold anymore (but not very warm either). This step is done, the French say, to casser le froid (or break the cold) and to also incorporate a bit of air in the eggs.
Pour the chocolate mixture over the egg mixture and mix well. Also pour the flour on tip and mix gently until all is incorporated.

Put it in the preheated oven and bake for 35-40 minutes (check with a skewer). Take out and allow to cool:

Remove the ring of the tin, transfer to a serving plate...

... slice and dig in! :)