Gluten-free flourless chocolate cake

There are no words for this cake, but I’m going to attempt it anyway. There are also no real pictures, because I made it at 10pm and promptly gave it away. The one piece I took home with the intent to photograph….got eaten. Oops!

My mom’s birthday was this week, and I had a few ideas about different cakes to make her, however our conversation went something like this:

Me: What kind of cake do you want me to make for your birthday?

Mom: CHOCOLATE.

Me: So not lemon layer –

Mom: CHOCOLATE.

Therefore it was decided. And I wanted to make something a little different from just cake with icing, and during my search I came upon a flourless cake recipe that looked fantastic – I believe one of the comments on the post declared it “better than sex”. Enough said.

A big Thank You to Gluten-Free Goddess ** for the original recipe!

Heavenly Gluten and Dairy-Free Flourless Chocolate Cake

The beauty of this recipe is that it is all made in a food-processor!

• 16 oz. dark chocolate,
• 1 cup  light brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup very hot strong coffee (or use espresso powder in very hot water)
• 2 sticks Earth Balance buttery sticks, room temperature, cut into pieces
• 2 tablespoons unsweetened Dutch coco powder
• 8 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a 10-inch spring-form pan with parchment that has been buttered or sprayed with non-stick spray.

Pour the chocolate into the food processor, break it up with a few pulses if needed – pieces should be as small as chocolate chips (or smaller). Add the sugars. Pulse together till combined. Pour the hot coffee through feed tube into the mixture while pulsing. Keep pulsing until chocolate is melted – it is genius! If you taste the batter at this point, don’t say I didn’t warn you: it is the best chocolate mixture I’ve ever tasted, like mousse and icing mixed into one. Yum.

Add coco powder, and add butter through feed tube while pulsing. Add vanilla to eggs then add egg mixture one-by-one through feed tube, while pulsing or running processor. The batter at this point will be liquid and creamy, a gorgeous milk-chocolate brown.

Pour into pan and wrap the outside with a big piece of foil. Bake for 55-65 minutes until pick emerges from center with no big crumbs. Cake will puff up to the top of the pan and will likely be cracked. The edges should pull away from the sides slightly. Edges will be set up, center will be soft but with a slightly crust. If it cracks, and the insides of the cake look wet, that’s ok.

Cool on a wire rack then refrigerate for at least 3 hours. The cake will deflate while cooling and will likely crack a bit more.

You may want to let it sit on the counter for a bit if you refrigerate it over-night. Serve with whipped cream, berries, a chocolate glaze, or with nothing at all!

Tips

• I ended up using a mixture of Guittard semi-sweet (12oz) and Scharffen Berger dark chocolate chunks. The chunks don’t melt as easily and leave a little bit of chocolate bite in the cake. If you want an uber-smooth batter I’d use all Guittard.
• To quickly get eggs at room temp, sit them in a bowl of warm water for 10 minutes or so, until they no longer feel cold to the touch.
• For the coffee, I used two teaspoons of organic instant freeze-dried coffee in 3/4 cup of boiling water – it was very strong, and we could taste it a little in the cake. The coffee really balances out the heavy chocolate flavor, but if you’re not into coffee you could use less-strong coffee (still use it though, I promise you will love it!).

This baby is HEAVEN. Declared to be the best cake Mom has ever tasted – she thought I should sell it for at least $5 a slice 🙂 It is rich and will serve from 12-15 slices (or less, if you’re like me).

Surprisingly, the taste is almost exactly like that of chocolate cheesecake. I had one for my birthday and they were very similar, except this cake has more chocolatey flavor, and of course, no dairy!. Unlike some chocolate decadence cakes, which can be very dense and fudge-like, this cake is light and fluffy.

You must try. This is perfect if you have to bring a dessert for people who don’t eat gluten-free, because there was never any flour here, or GF substitutions

** http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/2007/01/flourless-chocolate-cake_11.html