Flourless Chocolate Cake
Light as a feather, yet rich in flavour, this dark chocolate cake, topped with lashings of fresh cream, is luxurious, decadent, ridiculously delicious and very easy to make.
Ingredients
For the cake –
- 200g unsalted butter, in cubes
- 200g dark chocolate, 74% cocoa solids, broken into pieces
- ½ teaspoon instant coffee powder, sieved
- 100g soft brown sugar
- 100g caster sugar
- 5 large eggs, separated
- ¼ teaspoon fine salt
- 25g cocoa, sieved
For the topping –
- 300ml double/heavy cream
- grated chocolate
Instructions
-
Collect together your equipment (see Recipe Notes below) and ingredients.
-
Preheat oven to fan oven 160°C /180°C/350°F/Gas 4
-
How to make this amazing cake: chop the butter into squares and place in a microwave safe bowl with the chopped chocolate. Melt in a microwave or a bain marie and mix until smooth. (See Recipe Notes for details.)
-
Stir in the coffee and set aside.
-
Meanwhile put the soft brown sugar, egg yolks and salt in a mixing bowl and whisk with an electric whisk until thick and creamy. This will take around 3 minutes.
-
Pour the chocolate and butter into the eggs and sugar, whilst whisking, and mix thoroughly with the electric whisk until smooth and glossy.
-
Sieve over the cocoa powder and gently fold in.
-
In a different and clean bowl with clean whisks, beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks.
-
Continue to whisk adding the sugar 1 tablespoon at a time, until all the sugar is mixed in and the texture of the meringue is smooth and not grainy.
-
Carefully fold ⅓ of the egg whites into the chocolate mix.
-
Add the remaining egg white and fold in.
-
Transfer into a greased and lined 23cm/9in round cake tin and level the surface of the cake batter.
-
Cook in the centre of a pre-heated oven for 30 – 35 minutes. The centre will have puffed up into a dome shape. Remember, it will carry on cooking after it comes out of the oven.
-
Leave to cool in the tin for 30 minutes, during which time the centre of the cake will collapse a little. Then, using the parchment over-hang, transfer to a cooling rack. Do not remove the baking parchment at this stage, the cake will be too fragile.
-
When cold, remove the paper and transfer the cake to a serving plate.
-
Now whip and add the cream: whip the cream with an electric whisk until it reaches soft peaks.
-
Pile into the centre of the cake and spread to near the edge. Grate over some dark chocolate. And as Nigella says: apply to face!
Recipe Notes
Equipment
- Large microwave safe jug or heatproof bowl
- Electric whisk and 2 x mixing bowls
- Kitchen scales and measuring spoons
- Sieve
- Greased and lined 23cm/9in round cake tin
Be very careful melting the chocolate. Chocolate can be very difficult to work with. You can overheat it very easily and the mixture will go grainy. When this happens, there is no way to resolve it I’m afraid!
Microwave: I give the chocolate and butter a minute in the microwave, take it out and stir it well, then let it sit for a few minutes to see if it continues melting sufficiently to melt all the chocolate. If not, I then continue with the microwave but in 10 – 15 second bursts.
Bain Marie: if you do not have a microwave, put the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water. Do not let the base of the bowl touch the water. Heat until the chocolate and butter are very nearly melted then take it off the heat and take the bowl off the saucepan. Be very careful not to burn yourself as the bowl will be hot and steam will escape from the saucepan. Allow the mixture to sit for a few minutes for the residual heat to melt the remainder of the mixture. Again, be careful not to over-heat.