I always see videos of people making flourless chocolate cake. I’ve never had a flourless chocolate cake so I wanted to try.
I now understand why so many people make it, the flavour is great, the texture is great, it’s pretty easy to make, AND it’s also gluten free….I love it!
Video Tutorial
Flourless chocolate cake
If you’ve never had or made flourless chocolate cake, it’s essentially a cake that is made with whipped eggs, butter and melted chocolate.
There are other ingredients, but these are the main 3.
The taste and texture is not like a regular chocolate cake, you end up with a very rich fudgy cake, instead of a light fluffy one.
I personally would say it tastes much more like a brownie. But it’s called flourless chocolate cake and like….who am I to change the name you know.
Either way, wether it’s a brownie or a cake, it tastes great. So I guess it doesn’t really matter what it’s called.
Ingredients for the flourless chocolate cake
Here are the ingredients you are going to need to make this:
- Unsalted butter – I like to use unsalted so that I can control the amount of salt in the recipe, but salted works too. Just make sure not to add any extra salt.
- Dark chocolate – it’s important to use dark chocolate. Milk chocolate will just add extra sweetness and not enough chocolate flavour.
- Eggs – we want a lot of air in this cake batter. Whipping the egg yolks and whites separately will give us this.
- Granulated sugar – caster sugar works too.
- Cocoa powder – unsweetened cocoa powder is always best to use.
- Baking powder – to help the cake rise a little more.
- Salt – to help enhance the flavours. Leave this out if you’re using salted butter.
The baking powder
I wanted to mention the baking powder.
Most flourless chocolate cakes don’t use baking powder, or any raising agents. The cake usually relies on the whipped eggs to rise.
However, I added a teaspoon of baking powder to mine. I preferred the texture of the cake with the baking powder.
It just gave it an extra lift, I felt like without the baking powder was a little too fudgy for my liking.
You could leave it out, but I do think it’s so much better with it!
Lining your cake tin
I used an 8 inch cake tin for this. I used a regular cake tin but a springform/loose bottom one will work too.
When it comes to adding baking paper to it, I like the way this cake looks when it’s more rustic.
So instead of just adding a circle of baking paper to the bottom of the tin and then greasing the sides. I just got a large sheet of baking paper and pressed it down into the tin.
This way the baking paper covers the bottom and the sides of the tin and you get folds and wrinkles in the baking paper, which gives the cake a rustic look….I like this look.
You can of course line your tin however you want. I just felt like telling you my vision.
How to know when the cake is baked
This cake does take a while to make. I baked mine for around 1 hour – 1 hour 10 minutes.
To check the done-ess of the cake, it’s best to insert a toothpick into the centre.
Because this cake is on the fudgier side, your toothpick might not come out completely clean.
The cake is done when the toothpick is mostly clean, but has a few moist crumbs on it. Just make sure there is no wet batter on it!
Help!!! Why did my cake deflate?
I felt like I should mention this, just so you’re not alarmed.
As this cake cools, it will start to deflate slightly. The top will also start breaking and cracking a little.
This is normal.
The cake rises a lot in the oven because of the whipped eggs and baking powder. But because there is no flour, it will sink slightly after it comes out of the oven.
So if you see this happening, nothing has gone wrong, it’s expected.
If the cake ends up completely flat, then yes, something definitely went wrong. But a little deflating is expected!
Here are some more cake recipes I think you should take a look at:
Flourless
Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
220g unsalted butter
280g dark chocolate
6 egg whites
20g granulated sugar
6 egg yolks
250g granulated sugar
30g cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
Plus some icing sugar to dust on top (optional)
Directions
- Start by pre-heating your oven to 180c/350f. Also get a large piece of baking paper and press it down into an 8 inch cake tin.
- Add the butter and dark chocolate into a pot and place this over medium heat. Heat this until you get a smooth, melted mixture. You could also just do this in your microwave. Leave this aside to cool.
- In a large bowl, add the egg whites. Whip these until they start become foamy, then whiles still whipping, pour in the 20g of sugar. Once this has been added, whip until you get stiff peaks.
- In a separate bowl, add the egg yolks and the 250g of sugar. Whip these until the mixture lightens in colour and almost doubles in volume.
- Pour the cooled butter/chocolate mixture into this and whisk until combined. Then whisk in the cocoa powder, baking powder and salt.
- Add half of the whipped egg whites into this and gently fold these in. Then add the rest of the egg whites and fold just until you can no longer see any lumps or streaks of the egg whites.
- Pour this batter into your tin and bake for around 1 hour - 1 hour 10 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out mostly clean but with a few moist crumbs on it.
- After the cake has been baked, you will notice it will deflate and crack slightly as it cools, this is normal.
- Leave this to cool, then take it out of the tin, dust some icing sugar on top, cut into it and enjoy!
