Passover Chocolate Cake Recipe

I had the privilege of celebrating Passover in Israel many years ago with a religious cousin. I was served shmura matzo, which is a half-inch thick and about the circumference of a sedan hubcap. This matzo was the real McCoy, having been—I suspect—flung on the rocks and baked in the desert sun. The idea was that the more matzo you ate, the more faith you'd have for the coming year. I dutifully ate the tire (and the spare), and have been traumatized by the experience ever since.  

Upon further reflection, I scrapped the idea to make my own matzo when I realized my patio pavers wouldn't heat up enough for me to actually cook the matzo “al fresco,” and baking them in my own oven would render them completely non-kosher. I also began to have nightmares when I pondered the thought.

The second was a charoset recipe throw-down between my beloved Grandma Rose's chunky version and my dear mother-in-law Bev's paste-like concoction, with which you could literally hang wallpaper.

Grandma Rose's recipe was made with whatever she had on hand and a bottle of Manischewitz—only one-fourth of which would ever make it into the bowl.

On the other hand, Bev's recipe might kill me as it contains walnuts. Walnuts and I don't mix unless you want a gasping, frantic, anaphylactic pantomime performance at the dinner table to go along with your bitter herbs.

My dilemma was solved when I got an email from my friend Jodi, suggesting that charoset was way too boring, and that I needed to use my powers for good, not evil, to prepare something useful with chocolate ... raspberries (after all, Jodi can't have anything dull and boring on Passover).

Fine, Jodi, have it your way. I present to you, a molten unleavened chocolate cake with powdered sugar and a Chambord raspberry liqueur whipped cream.

Chocolate Lava Passover Cakes

Ingredients:

1/2 a stick butter, room temperature (plus extra for the ramekins)

1/3 cup sugar (plus extra for the ramekins)

3 eggs

1/3 cup matzo meal

1/4 teaspoon salt

8 ounces semi-sweet chocolate (bars or chips)

1 pint heavy whipping cream

2 tablespoons Chambord raspberry liqueur

confectioners sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Butter 4 individual ramekins with the butter. Coat with the extra sugar (not the 1/3 for baking). In a large bowl cream together the 1/2 stick butter and 1/3 cup sugar with a hand-mixer on high speed until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat well at low speed. Add the matzo meal and salt until combined. Using a double boiler, melt the chocolate. Gently beat in the chocolate, being careful not to over mix. Fill the four ramekins with the chocolate mixture.

Place the ramekins on a cookie sheet and bake until just firm, about eight or nine minutes. Remove from oven, and let stand for 10 minutes.

While the cakes are cooling, place whipped cream into a large bowl. Add liqueur. Beat with a hand-mixer on high until stiff peaks form. Do not over-beat or you will make Chambord butter.

To serve, invert ramekins onto a plate. Place a second plate over the cake and flip again so the cake is now right side up. Sprinkle with powdered sugar, garnish with Chambord whipped cream. Add fresh raspberries or a mint leaf.