Pain de chocolat rustique

This soft and melting taste is a warming kiss in cold summer days. This summer serves rain and cold wind almost every day. I serve a poetic chocolate high hope with summer fruits.

Farewell to summer

(by Bernard McEvoy)

Weep! weep! oh, tearful skies,

While summer gently dies,

And let us bid her sad farewell;

There are no tears so dear

As yours, nor so sincere,

Not to our hearts such solace tell.

Farewell!

For 8 pains:

100 g unsalted butter
75 g sugar
2 large eggs
100 g dark chocolate
85 g flour
3 g baking powder
blanched sliced almonds

By the night coldly kissed,

The silvery ghostly mist

Wakes from its slumbrous earthly cell;

Wanders beneath the trees,

Moved by each passing breeze,

Where late the burning sunshine fell.

Farewell!

My grandma did not have the fancy cup liners we use now. She did not have the cup-cake pans either. She did not use the real chocolate - it was too expensive and kept in the cupboard only for special occasions. Instead, she used small stainless  bowls that came handy for almost everything - (caramel cream, soufflés, baking pastry), lining them with paper squares, cut from a non sticking paper. Instead of chocolate, she used cocoa powder. (Note: for this recipe, following the really old-fashoned way of making it, 50 g cocoa powder should be used instead of 100 g chocolate, and 4 g vanilla extract in addition. Of course this would change the result completely - the softness of the real chocolate bread will be transformed in somehow tasting chocolaty product, but the warmness will be kept.)

The flour and baking powder are sifted together in a bowl. Prepare a bain-marie. Put the chopped chocolate in a heat proof pan that could be mounted over the bain-marie. As soon as the water starts boiling, remove from the heat and place the pan with the chocolate over it. Stir occasionally, making sure that all the pieces are melted. Do not return back over the heat if it is not necessary. Once the chocolate is melted, remove from the bain-marie. Leave it on a side until needed. 

Cream the butter and the sugar together until light. Ad the eggs one by one until fully incorporated. Add the chocolate. Fold in the flour mixture. 

Distribute the mixture in between 8 cups, lined with square, cut from a parchment paper. Sprinkle the sliced almonds. Bake at 180C for 10-15 min. Leave them to cool in the pan.

Bon appétit!

Beneath the stars' faint gleam

Moves on the placid stream,

And towards the sea doth flow and swell;

So doth our life-stream flee

On towards infinity,

Where no abiding sorrows dwell.

Farewell!

Love you, Grandma!