Claire's Flourless Chocolate Cake recipe
Hello, co-founder Claire here with one of my favourite chocolate recipes as featured in the Chococo cookbook we published way back in 2011. This flourless chocolate cake is easy to make and has the added benefit of being gluten-free. You can also make it nut-free if you use polenta or rice flour instead of ground almonds. Decorated with a heart as in the photo also makes it a perfect cake for the season of love in February!
Serves 8
Minutes 45 + cooling
Difficulty 3/10
Ingredients
- 200g dark chocolate (our 70% Madagascar or 72% Ecuador would be perfect), chopped
- 150g unsalted butter chilled & cubed
- 5 eggs, separated
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 100g light soft brown sugar
- 50g ground almonds (or instant polenta or fine rice flour)
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt, crushed
- 1 teaspoon ancho (or any mild) chilli powder - optional
To decorate: sifted icing sugar & cocoa powder to dust
Equipment
- 22cm loose-based cake tin, greased & lined with baking parchment
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180 C
- Put the chocolate and butter in a saucepan and melt over a low heat (watch it to ensure the chocolate doesn't burn!) & set aside to cook
- Cream the egg yolks, vanilla & sugar together in a large bowl until creamy & lighter in colour
- In a clean, grease-free bowl, whisk the egg whites with a handheld electric mixer until stiffly peaking
- Gently mix the cooled chocolate mixture into the egg yolk mixture and then add the ground almonds (or polenta), sea salt & chilli if you are using
- Gradually fold the egg whites into the mixture using a metal spoon - as gently as you can so that you don't lose the air in the eggs
- Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes until the cake has risen and a skewer comes out clean.
- The cake will sink as it cools, so don't worry when that happens.
- Once cool, decorate however you fancy - a simple sprinkling of cocoa powder or icing sugar will look lovely
- To create the effect in the picture, create a stencil (in what whatever shape you like) with a sheet of paper. Then liberally dust the entire cake in sifted icing sugar. Then gently place the stencil on top & dust through the cut-out shape with cocoa powder to finish.
- I love to serve this with creme fraiche & raspberries