Flourless Chocolate Cake (20)

 

If you plunged deep into my heart of hearts, you would find that at the core of my being, I am made of chocolate cake. Over the years, it's safe to say I've baked, and consumed, hundreds of chocolate cakes. This was a chocolate cake unlike any I've baked before. Flourless. 

The first thing I do when making a cake is always the same: preheat the oven and prepare the pan. This recipe calls for an 8" round pan. At first, I thought "8 inches? that's not nearly enough cake for all of us!" But this cake is SO rich, it was plenty. Don't forget to follow the directions and line your pan with parchment. It's a guaranteed release when you're done baking. 

The recipe calls for the cake to be made from bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate.  Lacking either, I made mine from a mix of 100% cocoa chips, and milk chocolate. This worked just as well. I melted the chips and the butter in the microwave. 30 seconds, stir; 30 seconds, stir. I keep my chocolate chips in the freezer, so this probably took me a smidge longer than it will for you. 

I placed the chocolate/butter into my stand mixer's bowl and added in the sugar, salt, espresso (optional), and vanilla. This only needed about 30 seconds of slow mixing to combine. Then I added in the eggs, which again took less than a minute to homogenize, followed by the cocoa powder. Once that was stirred in, it goes straight into the pan. Not gonna lie, at this point, the batter is not a cake consistency. It looks (and tastes) like brownies. Thick and fudgy.

I smoothed the top before popping it into the preheated oven for 25 minutes. Unfortunately, at the end of 25 minutes, it wasn't up to temp, and needed about four more minutes to reach an internal temperature of 200. 

Once it cooled in the pan five minutes, I inverted it directly onto the serving plate, not a cooling wrack. The recipe leads me to believe that this is because the cake can be quite crumbly, but I didn't have a problem with that at all. 

Being the impatient person that I am, I placed the cake into the fridge to cool for about 30 minutes, because it must cool completely before you glaze the top. 

The 'glaze' the recipe directs you to make is simply a thick ganache (which, incidentally, is my favorite  cake 'frosting'). I heated the heavy cream in a microwave until it was too hot to stick in my finger (just before it boils) and then dumped that over a bowl of chocolate chips.  I let it sit for about two minutes before I whisked it together. Once it was smooth, it was actually quite thick. I decided to forgo the five minutes of waiting time and placed it on the cake immediately. It is a generous amount of frosting for an eight inch cake. Which is a compliment, not a complaint. 

The consensus from the family was that this was absolutely delicious--maybe the best brownies I've ever made. That's right, they all thought it was frosted brownies. This flourless cake just doesn't have that soft, glutinous crumb you're anticipating.  If you're looking for a gluten-free chocolate cake, I suggest you use a recipe that uses a gluten free flour. If, however, you're looking for something rich, with a strong chocolate flavor, that is dense and fudgy, this is the recipe for you.

Scores (out of 5): Breanna-4.5. Dustin-4. Michael-4. James-4.5. Andrew-3. Total 20/25

https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/flourless-chocolate-cake-recipe