My Grandmother’s Chocolate Pesach Cake Recipe

The sixth day of Pesach is my grandmother’s yahrzeit – this year will be 2 years since she left us.

I would like to honor her by sharing one of her recipes, a very tasty Kosher L’Pesach chocolate-orange cake. As the kosher catering queen of Sydney, Australia, for over 50 years, my grandmother made hundreds of Pesach cakes every year and literally tens of thousands of them in her lifetime.

This recipe is special because my grandmother – who we called by the Hungarian endearment of Anyu – wrote it down for us when she was already in her hospital bed, which she was sadly never to leave. I’m pasting a pic of the original handwritten version below. Don’t you adore her village school penmanship, with all words spelled with a Hungarian accent?

Anyu knew a good reliable recipe and this one is a keeper. I made it last year and my guests polished it off. I can’t wait to make it again this chag in her honor, and if you make it too, I’m sure Esther bas Mordechai A”H will have endless nachas Above.

Chocolate-Orange Pesach Cake (KLP Gluten Free)

Ingredients:

5 eggs, seperated

4 Heaping TBSP cocoa powder

3 cups sugar

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup orange juice

Zest of one orange

1/2 cup oil

1 cup potato starch

1 tsp of baking powder

100 g almond meal

Directions:

1. In a small pot, bring cocoa, 2 cups sugar and water to boil, stirring constantly, until the sugar dissolves.
2. Remove from heat and let it cool.
3. Add oil, orange juice and zest, and gradually stir in the eggs yolks, one at a time.
4. In a seperate bowl, beat eggs whites with 1 cup of sugar, until stiff
5. Fold the chocolate mixture into the eggs whites, and then add the potato starch and baking powder (use a sifter if you have one)
6. Lastly, fold in the almond meal.
7. Pour into baking dish. For me this recipe fills up one 9*13 + 1 loaf tin. I guess the smaller one is for you to eat before the guests arrive 🙂
8. Bake for 45-55 minutes at 180 degrees C/350 Faranheit. A toothpick should come out clean.
9. Let it cool completely in the baking dish and then glaze and enjoy!

Happy Pesach to You!