Flourless Chocolate Cake

A flourless chocolate cake? YES! I found a great new recipe for Flourless Chocolate Cake in A Taste of Heritage: The New African American Cuisine Cookbook by Chef Joe Randall and Tony Tipton-Martin. My new favorite place to browse recipes is the cookbook section of the public library! I know this sounds stupid, but I didn't know they had cookbooks at the library! It just never occured to me to look for a cookbook at the library. But, now that I know, I can check out cookbooks whenever I want and explore new recipes without committing to buying the cookbook unless I love it. I found this cookbook a few weeks ago and browsed through it. The only disappointing thing about this book is that there aren't any photos of the food! I have no idea what each recipe is supposed to look like, and let's face it, we eat with our eyes, so it's important to get a visual temptation before making a new recipe! Nevertheless, I have enjoyed this cook book immensely. The recipes range from savory to sweet and I love the mini historical tidbits woven in between each recipe.

I used the recipe, "Patrick Yves Pierre-Jerome's Flourless Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Sauce," on page 255 this weekend for a birthday cake for my friend. She doesn't eat flour, so I thought this recipe would be perfect for her! I didn't want to add liquer in case kids wanted to eat it, and I omitted the raspberry sauce and whipped up a batch of homemade whipped cream instead. I tweaked the chef's recipe a little bit by substituting vanilla for the liquer (didn't know if that would work, but it turned out okay!).

What I love about this recipe is that the cake turns out like a fudgy brownie. I still can't believe there is no flour in this recipe, though. It's almost like a chocolate souffle! I have never made something like this before, so it was an experiment from start to finish. Now, that I know how to do it, I want to make it again. The trick is to make sure your egg whites are beaten properly. They have to be stiff for this to work since the volume of this cake relies on the airy lightness of the beaten egg whites. If I make this recipe again, I might cut back the sugar to 1 and 1/3 cups to see if it still works and is equally as good. Surprisingly, this cake wasn't too sweet though. I just don't like overly sweet cakes, so if I can cut the sugar down a bit, this will be a solid go-to recipe for me. I did not have a pound of chocolate to chop up, so I just used Ghirardelli semi sweet chocolate chips, instead and it worked just fine.

INGREDIENTS:

1 pound semisweet chocolate, chopped
1 cup (two sticks) unsalted butter
8 eggs, separated
1 1/2 cups of sugar
2 teaspoons Vanilla (or 2 tablespoons Frangelico liquer)

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler. Cool to room temperature. Whip the egg yolks and sugar until thick and pale. Beat in the Frangelico or vanilla (if you don't want the liquer). Whip the egg whites until stiff. Fold one third of the chocolate into the yolks. Fold in one third of the whites.  Fold in the remaining chocolate and whites. Butter and flour a 10-inch springform pan.  Pour in the batter and bake for 25-30 minutes. The cake edges will be set, but the center will still be soft.


Cool in the pan and chill overnight.