Today, February 7th is Frankie Day!!! Frankie is my older brother and he was born on a sunny February day in '76, angels sang, clouds cleared and a son was born!! Oh, to be a son in an Italian home.
All jokes aside, Frankie and I are three years apart and I feel we have the normal older brother, younger sister relationship. He was always the serious one, the student, as for me I never had homework and always told my parents the books were too heavy to carry home!! We were your typical brother and sister fighting over silly things, playing GI Joe war games with elastics and collecting smurfs my mom would buy us at the Corner Mall in Downtown Crossing. I remember when I was younger I could only use the Nintendo when my brother wasn't home, so I had to sneak in games of Contra when he wasn't around. My favorite memory of Frankie and I playing was this one night we were pretending to be in that show Dynasty (80's night time soap). He was Blake and I was Crystal and in one episode Blake looks at Crystal and says "Crystal I don't feel so good", then, tumbles down the stairs in a dramatic fall. Well, this one particular night Frankie and I kept reenacting this scene and he would pretend to fall down the stairs and then it really happened, he actually fell down the stairs! It was really funny, he was laughing at the bottom of the steps, while my mom yelled at him from upstairs!! Priceless! I could go on, I won't even start talking about the time he couldn't wear his glasses at the dinner table at grandma's!! Those who were there remember the story!!
Anyway, Happy Birthday to my brother! I hope you liked the cake I made for you and for my readers here is my recipe for Frankie's Chocolate Truffle Cake
Makes 10" cake
Preheat oven to 325 degrees
15 eggs at room temp
1 1/2 lbs gianduja, chopped
1 lb good quality bittersweet chocolate, chopped
5 sticks unsalted butter
Prepare pan with baking spray and line the bottom of the pan with a parchment round. In a double boiler, melt the two chocolates together with the butter. When melted remove from heat. In a large mixing, beat the eggs on high speed with a mixer using a whip attachment until eggs hold a soft peak and are spongelike. This will take 5-7 minutes. Fold a 1/4 of the chocolate into the eggs and the add the rest. Use a ballon whisk to mix together and then finish folding chocolate in with a rubber spatula. Pour into prepared pan and bake in a 1" water bath for fifteen minutes. Cake will be loose when you take it out. Cool completely on a wire rack and then cover with plastic and store in the fridge overnight. Unmold the next day. Top with powdered sugar or your favorite ganache. Enjoy! Love you Frankie!
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