Chocolate Flourless Cake

I feel so accomplished this week! One of the many things I did was bake a chocolate flourless cake which just happens to be on my 2011 To-Bake List! Yes, this was my first attempt at a chocolate flourless cake...not too shabby for my first time. This is probably a skewed thinking but I gauged my success on this recipe on whether the cake ended up looking like the picture from the recipe I retrieved the recipe from. I'd say it's pretty close!

What is a chocolate flourless cake? Think of a chocolate custard fluffed with egg whites. The result? Rich and dense chocolate goodness. This is a gluten-free dessert because like the name describes, this recipe is flourless! It's a great dessert because it requires four simple ingredients you usually have on hand. The most difficult part of this recipe is whipping egg whites and folding it in the batter. Don't worry, I use to have a fear of egg whites too. My two cents: practice! The more you practice whipping and folding egg whites, the more you see what the wrong and right ways look like. Also, videos on how to whip and fold egg whites are helpful. I watched several videos on how to fold egg whites and saw significant improvements in my egg whipped baked goods!

This recipe creates a rich chocolate dessert with just enough sweetness to satisfy your sweet chocolate craving. I am curious to alter the recipe a little and play around with the amount of sugar. While this recipe is awesome, it is not as sweet as other chocolate flourless cakes I've had and sometimes I'm all about making life a little sweeter!

Chocolate Flourless Cake
compliments of TasteFood


Ingredients
8 ounces dark chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
6 large eggs, separated
1/2 cup granulated sugar
powdered sugar (optional for dusting)

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 300 F. Line a spring form pan with parchment paper and cooking oil.
2. Melt chocolate and butter in a double boiler pot. If you do not have a double boiler, place a glass bowl over a pot of simmering water. Be sure the water does not touch the bowl. Cool chocolate mixture to lukewarm. Whisk in egg yolks.
3. Beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Add sugar to egg whites and beat until egg whites are stiff. Fold egg whites into chocolate mixture in 3-4 additions.
4. Pout batter into spring form. Spread batter across pan evenly.
5. Bake for 40 minutes or until cake begins to pull away from sides of pan.
6. Release spring form latch when cake is removed from oven and cool completely before serving. Dust powdered sugar to add an extra bit of sweetness and to decorate cake.