This inspired by the Black Mirror episode of a similar name(in this case, Bete Noire, which translates to “thing that people particularly dislike”), but with pastry always on my mind, I immediately thought of the chocolate cake instead. Bete noir is a French flourless chocolate cake, literally translating to “black beast”. For my variation on this French classic, I went with a miso-olive oil variation, just because I love how the olive oil provides a grassiness that compliments the saltiness of the miso and the bitterness of the chocolate. Traditionally, bete noir cake is made with a simple syrup, but in this case, I went with a cold brew syrup, since coffee will further accentuate the flavor of the chocolate itself! What I love about this recipe is that it comes together relatively quickly for a flourless chocolate cake. A typical FCC(I’m just shortening flourless chocolate cake here because typing it out all the time is so time-consuming) takes about 50 minutes to an hour to bake. That is because the recipe relies on eggs being baked and set for the cake to have any structure, similar to a flan or a baked custard situation. In the case of my recipe, I used a much smaller set of ring molds, and because it was a smaller(but still respectably sized) cake, it took about 35 minutes to bake through! To finish my bete noir, and to drive home the miso flavor, I made a roasted miso sugar(one of my personal favorite dessert ingredients/brain children to come out of the pandemic) and dusted that around the cakes to finish!

In terms of general difficulty, this is not too tricky of a cake to bake. The batter itself does take a few steps, since you have to make a coffee simple syrup, then melt chocolate, then mix those two things together with eggs. However, since the eggs are being added off heat, there’s literally next to no risk of them scrambling in the batter! Your biggest challenge here might be purchasing oven-safe 4-inch ring molds. But you can find those on Amazon relatively easily, so there’s that. So long as the cake tins are lined with foil, the batter cannot escape from underneath the ring molds either! The longest part of this recipe is probably the baking/setting time. Yes 35 minutes is considered an abbreviated bake for an FCC, but compared to my usual recipes, where my cakes take 20-25 minutes, 35 might feel like a prison sentence. At least it did to me anyways, but I tend to live life at 2x speed due to just being a naturally more impatient person. But the real killer here is the setting time. If you do not give your baked cakes enough time to fully cool, you will end up with warm chocolate pudding, or worse, chocolate-scrambled eggs. You need to make absolute sure that the cake is cool to the touch before attempting to unmold it from the ring molds, or else the cakes will basically fall apart. That is usual consequence of baking something without either gluten or a gluten-replacement(like xanthan gum), but unlike other gluten-free desserts, this one requires a lot less things(like gluten-free flours or xanthan gum) to make, so there’s that anyways! Typically, a bigger FCC will require a water bath to bake the cakes evenly, and while one is always welcomed, I went without one just because of how small the cakes were. For the most part, they actually baked pretty evenly as shown below!

Makes 2 4-inch cakes:
For the batter:
4oz granulated sugar
2oz cold brew
4oz extra virgin olive oil
6oz dark chocolate
1oz black cacao powder
3 eggs
1 tbsp white miso paste
1 tsp vanilla bean paste

In a pot, heat up the sugar and cold brew until the sugar fully dissolves into the liquid and the liquid itself is reduced by half. Keep the syrup at least lukewarm for easier incorporation into the batter.

Over a double boiler in a heatproof mixing bowl, heat up the olive oil, dark chocolate, and black cacao, until everything is fully melted together. Take the bowl off heat and whisk into that the coffee syrup, eggs, miso paste, and vanilla bean paste to form your cake batter.

Line two 4-inch ring molds with aluminum foil and cooking spray, then place onto a sheet tray. Divide the batter evenly between the two ring molds. Bake at 350 degrees F for 35 minutes. Allow the cakes to fully cool before attempting to unmold.

For the miso sugar:
1 tbsp white miso paste
1/4 cup granulated sugar

Spread the miso paste onto a lined sheet tray in a thin layer. Bake at 350 degrees F for 10 minutes. Allow the miso paste to cool before peeling it off the sheet tray and transferring to a spice grinder with the sugar. Blitz until a fine powder is formed. Using a sieve, dust the sugar around the edges of the cake to finish.