Flourless Chocolate Cake

If you have never made a flourless chocolate cake, you're missing out.  I made this cake for the first time two years ago on valentines day and it was a hit.   It's like a cake had a baby with a brownie ... it has the rich, moist quality of a brownie with the fluffiness and look of a cake.

This is also a great recipe if you have to make a desert for someone who has a gluten intolerance.  It has no flour what so ever so you don't have to worry about finding different kinds of flour at the last minute and worrying that it won't taste right.  

It is a very rich cake so it's nice to cut that with some ice cream .... and heck, if you have some caramel sauce kicking around, load 'er up!!  haha

I must confess that I was making this desert to take over to a friends place, so I made one 9" cake to take with me and then saved a little batter to make the little 4" cake pictured above so I could destroy it for your viewing pleasure :-)  This is what the full cake looked like:

Ingredients:

9 Eggs

1 Pound of good dark chocolate (I used 1 and a 1/2 of those big gold wrapped Lindt chocolate bars)

1/2 cup of butter

3/4 cup granulated white sugar

Original recipe found at www.foodnetwork.com

Directions:

Preheat you oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9x3" circular spring form pan.

Step 1:

Separate your eggs,  put the whites in the clean and very dry bowl of your stand mixer.  Put the yolks in a side bowl

Step 2:

Set your mixer on medium and whip your egg whites to firm peaks (make sure everything you use is COMPLETELY dry or the egg whites won't whip up).  Once your egg whites are done, put them in bowl or side plate.

Stiff peak egg whites

Step 3:

While your egg whites are whipping up, chop up your chocolate into little pieces and put it in a bowl and put that bowl over simmering water.  Add the butter.  Keep stirring and let it melt.  Once it has melted, turn off the heat.

The melted chocolate with butter

Step 4:

Once your egg whites are in a side bowl, put your yolks in the bowl of the stand mixer with the sugar (no need to wash the bowl).  Whip your yolks and sugar together until pale yellow.

Step 5:

A little at a time, add the melted chocolate to your egg yolk mixture.  Don't put it all in at the same time because if your chocolate is too warm you'll scramble your egg yolks.

Egg yolk, sugar, and chocolate mixture

Step 6:

Gently fold in half your egg whites into your yolk/chocolate mixture. Once they have been incorporated, fold in the rest of your egg whites.

Step 7:

Pour your batter into the prepared spring form pan and bake for 35-40 minutes. When it's done you'll see the top start to crack along the sides and when you insert a toothpick it should come out with a little moist crumb stuck to it.  Let it cool for about 10 minutes before removing the sides of the pan.

Ready to go in the oven

Serve with ice cream or whipped cream ... everything is better with ice cream and caramel :-D