Chocolate with Francois - Chocolate Nut Loaf

In this land of blogging, it is fun to meet new online friends and share your cooking/baking experiences with them.  One of my favorites is Leslie of Lethally Delicious.  Leslie makes food that causes my mouth to water just looking at her photos.  I always learn something when I visit her blog.  And as a plus, she is a really nice person.

This month in our Chocolate with Francois group, Leslie hosted our group and chose the Chocolate Nut Loaf for us to try.  We use Francois Payard's book Chocolate Epiphany.  Often Francois' recipes are too difficult for me to master, but this one seemed like something I wanted to try.  I cannot wait to see how the other cooks made out with this one and what variations they made to the recipe. 

Here I am on Sunday afternoon just lazing around with a headache.  I watched a movie that was older called Murder in the First with Kevin Bacon and Christian Slater about a guy that tried to escape Alcatraz and was placed in solitary for over three years.  It was so moving and I hope Kevin Bacon got an oscar or something for his role in it.  I cried several times during the movie.  After the movie, I watched my DH play the WII.  He cycled, he skied, he laughed, it was quite amusing!  Men. . .they are just big grown up boys aren't they?

Ok so I dragged myself off the couch and went to make my cake.  I got all my ingredients out,  turned on the oven, lugged my mixer from the cabinet to the countertop (my oh my those Kitchen Aid mixers are heavy, or am I just a big ole wimp?), prepared my pan, and started mixing the batter.  When I got ready for the nuts, I discovered I did not have any almonds except for the kind that are covered in sea salt.  Hmmm. . the only thing I could do was drive to the store or use walnuts.  I bet you can guess which this lazy girl chose.  How are walnuts going to taste with an almond flavored chocolate loaf cake?  We'll see.  Let me just say this loaf had a ton of butter in it.  I cannot wait to see what the texture will be like.  And I thought the batter was a little runny, but all of a sudden it really thickened up.

Cooked for 50 minutes.  I was afraid I had overcooked and it did not rise much.

I decided not to glaze the entire cake so you are only getting a portion of the glaze here on one corner. 

The verdict is that it was delicious cake with just a touch of almond flavor which I love.  It was a little on the dry side, so maybe 50 minutes in my oven was just a tad too long??  But we ate it and loved it.
Oh where has the afternoon gone.  Now it is back to work tomorrow!  I hear snow may be coming to my area again in the middle of this week.  I'm so ready for warm weather and spring flowers!