The Queen of Sheba Cake - The Finished Product

As promised - the results of yesterday's baking endeavours. The Queen of Sheba Cake or Gateau Reine de Saba. Taken from The Best Ever French Cooking Course, this recipe can be found quite readily on the internet.  The Julia Child recipe is quite different to that  of the book I used so I will try her recipe at a later date! As you can see from the ingredients that are ready to be amalgamated, there is nothing bad or false about this beauty. Straight forward in its execution the cake will take about 10 minutes to be put together ready for the oven. I used 60% dark chocolate for both the cake and the glaze, and this gives a really rich bitter flavour to the resultant cake. If you like a more bitter tasting cake then try 75% or even 80%, but having worked with chocolate for a long time, I would really think twice before going much higher than 80%! I did include Amaretto liqueur in both the cake and glaze (Julia uses dark rum), which really complements the ground almonds in the cake mix. \i decided not to use a spatula to move the glaze over the surface of the cooled cake, instead opting for pour in the centre then extend out to the edge of the cake and allowing the flow of ganache to coat the side of the cake. Flaked almonds were painstakingly applied one by one by hand - but that I just me being anal!!!! A definate "I'll be baking this again" recipe I do hope you have a go yourself!