Easter Egg Nest Cake
It is, I hope, the acceptable face of culinary cute: a chocolaty flourless cake that falls on cooling. The sides crack, forming the outside of the nest, and into the cake's sunken cavity you spread a soft, voluptuous mixture of whipped cream and melted chocolate. And on top of this you drop small, sugar-coated candy Easter eggs. It's ease itself — especially as you can make the cake the day before, and given that the cracks and crevices are part of its charm, you don't need to be filled with perfectionist angst. And if not complying with the traditions of this holiday, you can fill the crater instead with cream whipped with a teaspoon of vanilla, and dust the top, cappuccino-style, with some cocoa pushed through a strainer. I've used both bittersweet and semisweet chocolate in this cake. Either way it works, either way it seduces. It has the denseness of a chocolate cake, but the lightness of a mousse. Even those who customarily push dessert away, smugly claiming not to eat sweets, wil
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