Spending Valentine's Day in with someone special, or just yourself (you're special too, ya know!)? Make this gorgeous Flourless Chocolate Cake and spend all weekend enjoying the fudgy goodness! My slightly adapted version of King Arthur Flour's Flourless Chocolate Cake, is the perfect blend of fudgy cake and fudgy brownie. And as someone who has always preferred brownie to cake, this cake is a favorite of mine!
This cake is perfect, even when it cracks while you take the picture; mine cracked once while transferring to take this picture and then again in the other direction while trying to transfer it back to the cake stand. It still tastes incredibly fudgy and delicious.
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Adapted recipe from King Arthur Flour.
My version turns out like a fudgy brownie, in my opinion, and as someone who has always preferred brownies over cake, I'm in love!
Cake
1 cup Chocolate Chips*
8 tablespoons butter
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon brewed coffee
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 eggs, separated
1/2 cup cocoa
Ganache/Glaze
1 cup chocolate chips*
1/2 cup cream
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. I used a 9" springform pan, greased and then cut a piece of parchment to insure that it would release from the bottom of the pan.
Two ways to melt the butter and chocolate are as follows: using a double boiler, you can put the chocolate and butter in a glass bowl, over a simmer pot of water and stir while melting. Or put chocolate and butter in a microwave safe bowl and melt in short increments, stirring occasionally, until melted. Stir in coffee at the end.
Once melted, transfer to a mixing bowl and add in the sugar, and vanilla until combined. The sugar can be a bit grainy in the end, while this isn't necessarily bad, it can change the texture; so be sure to combine well. Mix in egg yolks, only, until fully combined.
In a separate bowl, whip egg whites until fluffy and at a soft peaks. Gently, very gently fold the egg whites into the chocolate mix. This will take time. Try not to loose the airiness of the whites.
Put batter into the pan and bake for 25 minutes. According to the King Arthur recipe, the center should temp out at around 200 degrees Fahrenheit. I didn't temp this, but it turned out fine.
Once slightly cooled in the pan, turn out on a cooling rack. You can then turn it right side up, if you want, but it really doesn't matter, as you are going to glaze it anyway.
You don't want to glaze the cake until it is fully cooled, so at this point you can wait to make the glaze.
Once the cake is cooled, put the chocolate in a heatproof *bowl and place cream in a pan and simmer. DO NOT BOIL. Simmering will mean that you'll see some small bubbles around the edges but the cream should never roll. Once those bubbles start to form, you're going to pour them over the chocolate. Stir this, then let sit to allow the heated cream to start melting the chocolate, then stir again until you see no lumps of chocolate.
I placed a piece of parchment under the cooling rack that my cake was on. Now fully cooled, I spooned over my glaze, then spread with the back of the spoon so that it ran over the sides.
Notes:
*Chocolate Chips: I had both bittersweet and semi-sweet chocolate on hand so I weighed out 1 cup (170g) of a mix. This turned out to be 100g bittersweet and 70g semi-sweet. This was the perfect combination for my family. Feel free to play with your own, as long as it adds up to 1 cup or 170g.
*For the glaze you can put the chocolate in a heatproof measuring cup with a spout for easy pouring if you'd prefer not to spoon over the cake.
*Decoration: I used a heart doily and sifted a mix of powdered sugar and cocoa on top and then very carefully lifted the doily. Other ideas are to forgo the doily and just cover the entirety of the cake, don’t cover it at all, slice strawberries around the edges, toasted nuts or shaved chocolate.
*Dietary Restrictions: While this is already good for a Gluten Free family, there is butter and cream in here if you are on a dairy free restriction. I happened to use Avocado butter in mine and it worked great. However, I did not use coconut milk or cream when making the glaze. I know there are recipes out there for diary free ganache's, so please feel free to try them and let me know how it turns out. I am slightly lactose intolerant, so I sometimes will incorporate that into my baking, but for the most part I know that I won't just sit down and eat the entire cake. And even if I did, the stomach that would occur would far more likely be due to the amount of cake and chocolate than the diary.
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