Chocolate Cake, Flourless and Delicious

I finally got to make it, a Flourless Chocolate Cake that is.   Usually when I make a chocolate cake for a birthday I use a mix.   Cause the person I make the cake for likes that kind of cake.   However, I've been wanting to make a flourless chocolate cake for a long time, and Yay Me!!!!, I did it.   And it was good.   It also won't be the last time I make it either.

I guess I should tell you I made it for a friend who attends those Friday Night NPA get togethers. I have to admit, I used her birthday as an excuse to bake this.

I started off with looking at a lot of recipes online, and finally I took some of this and some of that and figured out the ratio's and here it is.     Well, first off, I got the base recipe here  They call it a French Flourless Chocolate Cake, and I won't argue with that.   But the basics of many of the recipes I did read said to melt the butter and chocolate together,  mix the eggs and sugar together and bake it.

I had some Baker's Semi Sweet Chocolate in the cupboard anyway, I try to keep a package handy, so many recipes call for chocolate.   And the reason I keep this on hand, quite frankly, it fits my budget better than say Scharffen Berger or other artisan chocolates.   And my local grocery store actually stocks it as well.    And of course, my Land of Lakes Butter.

Have I said before that I love my Kitchen Aid mixer?  Well, I do.   And that is important here.
I creamed the eggs and sugar together until the sugar had dissolved completely before I added the barely warmed and melted chocolate, and then folded in the egg whites, which I'd beaten into a glossy meringue.  

Sorry got carried away there, but really, it was a beautiful thing.

Start with, melt the butter and chocolate together, either over a double boiler or in the microwave.   I have a little teeny double boiler I use, and I do not get the water really hot, cause I just want it warm enough to melt the chocolate and butter together.

Got that melted and set it aside to cool down a little while the egg yolks and sugar got creamed together.

Whipped the egg whites until glossy, and added some of the sugar to it, just wanted to make it a little like a meringue.

Very important here, don't add the hot chocolate you just melted into the beaten egg yolks, you'll just get chocolate scrambled eggs, and  I really don't think that would taste good.

I drizzled in the melted chocolate and butter into the mixer and beat it until it was well combined. 

I then took the egg whites, and dumped them down on top of the chocolate mixture and folded them in.   The proper way.  

Which is basically this;  You use the spatula and turn the mixture towards you, scooping under chocolate and cutting through, then turn the bowl a quarter turn, do the scooping motion and cutting motion again.   This keeps the egg white from breaking down a lot.  Of course the chocolate mixture is pretty heavy, but still.   Continue doing this until the egg whites are incorporated.   Finish by pouring into a greased and papered spring form pan if you have it.   Which I don't (yet), so I used my handy cake pan which has a built in bar which can loosen a cake from the bottom.   I greased it and dusted it with cocoa powder.

I love this pan and it's sister as well.  Trust me on this, it has saved me a lot of grief when a cake stuck to the bottom of the pan and I could not get it out to save my life.











Pour the cake batter into the pan, and then do like I did, figure out that you made too much batter, and hurry up and grease some cupcake papers and pour the remainder of the batter into them.    I forgot to take a picture at this point so had to shoot the picture of the cake and cupcakes after I'd put them into the 350 deg. oven.   I swear sometimes, I just forget, I get so excited with what I'm doing.   I guess you just have to put up with me on this.   I cook real food for real people, and not for the blog, of course after 200 posts I should have figured it out.

Let them bake for about 30 minutes and took the cupcakes out, let the main cake bake another 10 minutes until a toothpick came out clean.   The interior was still fudgy and gooey.   I know this cause when it came time to cut it, I saw that.

Now even though I'm not that fond of chocolate I did do a taste test.   Well, I've never made this kind of cake before and I wanted to make sure it was edible.
It was.

I also made a white chocolate caramel sauce to serve over the cake.  I experimented on myself with that one.   I just wanted to make sure it was good enough to eat.   And all I can say is Nona was just lucky I left enough of the sauce to top the cake slices.   I can live without chocolate, but Caramel, well, that's a totally different story.

 Here is the cake, just as I was cutting it.  And yes it is supposed to look like that on the top. 
It has little crackles in it. 

I guess you want the recipe don't you?

French Flourless Chocolate Cake

7 oz (200 g) semisweet chocolate  I used 6 squares of Bakers and one square of Bakers Unsweetened Dark Chocolate
4/5 cup (200 g) butter
1 cup (220 g) sugar
5 eggs, separated

 

 Preheat oven to 350deg F 

Line a 9 inch cake tin with greaseproof or other non-stick paper and grease the tin. Or use a springform pan. 

Break the chocolate into small pieces and melt it with butter over hot water.  I don't like getting it too hot. 

Beat the egg yolks with 3/4 cup of the sugar.

Fold in the melted butter and chocolate mixture after it has cooled down a little, otherwise the eggs cook.

Beat egg whites until frothy by using an electric mixer; gradually add the remaining sugar, beating until stiff peaks form.

Fold the beaten egg white into the chocolate mixture, gently.  

Bake at 350 degrees until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean, approximately 40 minutes.

Use a knife to separate the cake from the non-stick paper. Please observe that the cake is quite sticky!  I used the bottom of a plate placed on top of the cake to kinda hold it place, the tipped it out of the pan, I then placed the serving plate under the cake bottom and up ended it, so it was right side up. 

The Flourless Chocolate Cake may be served warm or cold with whipped cream. The cream may be dusted with cocoa powder before serving, and the cake may be dusted with powdered sugar.  I think some lovely sliced strawberries would go well with this as well.
I served it with a home made white chocolate caramel sauce.

Caramel Sauce
Melt some white chocolate chips into some warmed heavy cream.  ( I didn't measure so I'm guestimating)
1/4 cup white chocolate chips
1/4 cup heavy cream
Mix together, and then in a small pan
caramelize 2 tablespoons sugar, just until it melts and starts to turn color.   Ad 1 tablespoon butter, mix together.   Pour in the white chocolate mixture and let it cook, stirring constantly until the sugar has dissolved back into the liquid.    This will take a couple of minutes.   Take off of the heat and serve over the Chocolate cake.

Or, melt some caramels, or use some of my Home made Caramels, and add to some sweetened condensed milk (Eagle Brand), and heat together until the caramel is melted and stir until incorporated.