Tips for Your Flourless Chocolate Cake
We’ve made dozens of these flourless chocolate cakes and served them to our customers in the store plus we’ve used them in classes. There are two keys to success: really good cocoa and a springform pan with a tight seal. We recommend a silicone springform pan.
Use Good Quality Dark Cocoa
Be sure and use good quality, dark cocoa. You want at least 16% cocoa butter. Most store cocoas are 8 to 10%. We use Ramstadt-Breda Dark Cocoa which has three times the cocoa butter (24%) of most national brands. This will not be the same with ordinary cocoa.
What You’ll Need for a Flourless Chocolate Cake
- For the cake, you will need a good quality nine-inch springform pan. We recommend our glass-based springform pans. We have baked this cake many times and have not had a single leak. We cut the cake right on the glass base.
- An insta-read thermometer. The proteins in the eggs will coagulate at 165 degrees and create the structure for the cake.
- For the raspberry sauce, you will need a medium sieve/strainer, one about 6 inches in diameter. The mesh in this size of sieve is usually the right size to catch most of the raspberry seeds and still let the puree pass.
- The red currant jelly gives the puree body, tartness, and color.
Easy Flourless Chocolate Cake Recipe
Yield: 12 servings
Ingredients:
- 8 large eggs
- 1 cup rich dark cocoa, Ramstadt-Breda or equal
- 1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled slightly
- 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
- In your stand-type mixer and with the whip attachment beat the eggs for three minutes at medium speed until they are bubbly and lighter colored. While the eggs are beating, melt the butter and measure the other ingredients. Measure the cocoa by spooning cocoa into a cup—do not compress the cocoa.
- Beat in the sugar and cocoa. While the mixer is running, drizzle in the melted butter. Continue beating until mixed. Scrape the batter into the pan.
- Bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until an insta-read thermometer registers 165 to 170 degrees when inserted into the center of the cake. Cool on a wire rack and then place in the refrigerator to chill. The cake will become dense as it cools.
Baker’s Note: A simple dusting of powdered sugar makes this cake elegant. Drizzle it with raspberry sauce, raspberry chocolate sauce, or chocolate sauce. (A recipe for raspberry sauce follows.) Finally add a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a dollop of whipped cream.
How to Make Raspberry Sauce
Raspberries alone are not tart and not flavored enough for a dessert sauce even when thickened with a starch. There are two possible solutions: Cooking the fruit down to concentrate the flavors or adding a jelly for thickness and flavor. This recipe uses the latter.
Yield: About 1 1/3 cups of raspberry sauce.
Ingredients:
- 12 ounces, about 3 cups frozen, unsweetened raspberries
- 2/3 cup red currant jelly
- about 1/4 cup sugar
Directions:
- Thaw and puree the raspberries. Strain them twice through a sieve/strainer or until nearly all of the seeds are removed. Place the puree in a small saucepan. Add the jelly.
- Cook, stirring occasionally, until the jelly is completely melted and blended with the fruit. Sweeten to taste with the sugar while it is still hot. Stir to make sure that the sugar is dissolved. Let cool.
