Sweet indulgence for cold rainy days: néger kocka (cocoa squares)

Néger kocka, cocoa square is one of the real classics from our childhood in Hungary. It is an easy-to-prepare cocoa cake base with a sweet and creamy meringue and a sticky cocoa glaze on top. It is not the cake you can eat without thinking the high calorie intake, but when I am looking out of the window on this sad, rainy and cold day I am sure this is exactly what our souls need in this moment. Or definitely my boyfriend, Áron needs it, who dies for everything which contains chocolate or cocoa. In the last weeks although he liked my blog posts- and the results of them- he always made a small complaining comment that my recipes recently don’t contain any chocolate. (Fortunately! How would taste stuffed peppers in tomato sauce with chocolate? Uh! ) So this recipe is for Áron’s sake and also a little bit for mine because I love taking photos of food with cocoa and chocolate.
Before I tell you more about this cake I would like to give you a short report from our little village in the Hungarian countryside. At the weekend our so called “winter scone” apples, which supposed to get ripe at the end of October according to books and informations found on the internet, decided to fall down. We need to look for crates in a hurry, my nice friend, Kata, the owner of a grocery shop gave me a bunch of them, and I found a few old ones in the attic of our old house as well. One is lined with an old newspaper from the 50’s and I get sticked to it when I read the title: “The way to communism according to Lenin”. I keep the old newspaper, it is already a piece of history.
The rose hip wine seemed go wrong, since mold appeared on the surface, but a friend, Peti- who prepared rose hip wine many times- told me not to worry, it is just normal.  Apple wine is sparkling, smells good which is a good sign so we still have a hope for tasting our very first home-made wine soon.
In the coming months I will definitely prepare a lot of things with apples since the ingredient is waiting for me in big bulks. But this néger kocka is something different. It is a sweet indulgence which is impossible to resist. I make my mother’s recipe more exact for you since I don’t want to worry you with instructions like “add as much milk you get a consistency easy to pour” The cocoa glaze gets solid quite quickly so I can already start slicing the cake into small squares by using a knife, dipped into hot water. Then I am going to give a try and eat a piece without getting my fingers and mouth full with meringue and cocoa cream. I tell you it is impossible.

Néger kocka (cocoa square)
Ingredients:
4 egg yolks
200 g caster sugar
120 g butter
200 ml milk
30 g Duch cocoa powder
200 g all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder

For the meringue
4 egg whites
200 g confectioner’s sugar

For the cocoa glaze
5 tbsp milk
200 g confectioner’s sugar
20 g Duch cocoa powder
100 g butter

Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Beat sugar with butter until foamy, then add egg yolks and cocoa powder. Mix flour and baking powder and alternately add flour and milk to the dough in small portions. I use a 22 x 35 cm large baking pan. Butter the bottom and sides of the pan, and put a piece of baking paper on the bottom just to be sure the cake doesn’t stick to it. Pour the dough into the baking pan, and bake it until a pin comes out clean if you pick the cake. Put the cake on a board or wire and let it cool down. In the meantime bring some water to boil in a pan and take a metal (preferably copper) bowl which fits to the pan. Be careful that the bowl’s bottom doesn’t reach the water. Reduce heat and start beating the egg whites, add sugar and beat it until it forms stiff peaks. Using a spatula spread the egg whites evenly on top of the cake. To make the cocoa glaze bring the milk to boil, add sugar and cocoa powder and cook it for a few minutes until thickens. Let it cool for 5 minutes and stir in the butter. Pour it over the meringue and spread it by using a spatula.