Chocolate Marquise

French cake recipes pride themselves on being extra complicated. It's taken me a while to work out why this is and my conclusion is that it is to put off anybody who is not French from making them. This particular recipe is one I found in my Organic Green & Black recipe book. My youngest child bought this book for me for my birthday, he got it from WH Smith - I know because I was there at the time, pulled it out, gave it to him and said, buy this for me for my birthday (when you are the Mother of boys, you cotton on pretty quickly that the direct approach is the only way to guarantee yourself any kind of present. Hints will not do the trick. My elder sister used to write her birthday list on yellow post it notes which she would put on the wall all the way up the stairs to her kids' bedrooms).  The cookery book had been heavily discounted - it started its life in the world at the princely sum of 15 quid, and by the time my son took it to the cashier it was a post Xmas bargain basement offering at a fiver. I figured at the time it would be because it contained risible recipes thinly disguised as marketing ploys to get you to buy more Organic Green and Black chocolate, and I wasn't a million miles away from being right, though I have made a fair few of their recipes using Divine, Lindt and on one occasion good old Cadbury's, so it's not a given, and no I didn't feel particularly guilty about abusing their branding efforts so cavalierly.  Anyway. I was wrong about the recipes being risible. There are a fair few in there that require dedication, precision, and single minded commitment, and this is one of them. The recipe suggests this is one only for the serious minded patisserie chef and you can see the subliminal sub text - if you don't fall into this category, don't even THINK of trying this one. But years of being a female executive, a multitasking Mum, an orthopaedic patient in a chaotic waiting room, a veteran supermarket queuer, a long distance frequent flyer, and an all round manager of life's unpredictabilities, have fostered in me a deep sense of rebellion. ANY message that says, this is not for you, draws me like a magnet. Not French enough to attempt a marquise? Marquise it is then. My current favourite apron (fire engine red, deep pockets, satisfyingly comprehensive coverage, and the large chested among you will know exactly what I mean by this) goes on, my utensils come out, music at the appropriate tempo - upbeat, loud but not too mad - goes on, kitchen door closes, and I am Ready For Business. A marquise is a thing requiring a careful eye - no playing Scrabble on the IPad or chatting with friends on the phone, while whisking your eggs. Take your eye off this for a second and it is no longer a marquise but a pudding/cake. A marquise is a confection of eggs, butter, chocolate and sugar on the bottom half, which is baked and then left to cool completely, while the top half is a chocolate mousse. The chocolate mousse, consisting of melted very, very, VERY dark chocolate with whipped cream, butter, icing sugar and whipped egg whites added in bit by careful bit to achieve exactly the right consistency, goes on top of the flour less bottom half. Then it is put in the fridge overnight. Then you immerse a spatula knife in boiling hot water, ease it in around the sides of the cake, and pull it out gently of its springform tin. Which liberates the most incredible work of art - all unctuous darkness on the bottom, and frothy richness on the top. Dollop creme fraiche on the top, not because it needs it for taste, more for the aesthetics of white on top of dark - and dig in, using a dessert fork. I never use dessert forks, or even spoons most of the time. I live with boys, remember? Our hands are shovels. But this marquise, it is the prince of dessert cakes and dammit, we are using dessert forks. Once I've excavated them from the loft, out of whichever wedding present box they have been hibernating for the last couple of decades. I made this marquise in around 5 hours, including baking time, not because it takes five hours, but because the process is mesmerising. There is something truly magnetic about seeing a bowl of chocolate, a bowl of whipped cream, a bowl of butter, a bowl of icing sugar, and a bowl of whipped, peaked egg whites, come together in such a froth of palate-adoring chocolately wonderfulness. If I add together the cost of all the ingredients it comes to more than a quarter more than the cost of the book that suggested I was unworthy of making it. Oh, and I used Divine chocolate mixed with Organic Green and Black. There you have it.  A jet lagged Jewish Mother from North London turns out a chocolate marquise, the richness of which has felled her family. I defy any Frenchwoman to beat that for achievement.