Flourless Chocolate Cake
Recipe by SnoPuppy Wikified by Drimble Wedge
Today we are making one of the best desserts ever. As one of my roommates said, "If you were trying to get laid, this cake alone would be enough to seal the deal." Remember that scene in the Matrix, when they were meeting the Merovingian, and the girl has an orgasm from eating the cake? That was a flourless chocolate cake, and what we're making.
To start off with, lets gather the ingredients, shall we? We only need 4 ingredients:
- 1 pound of quality, semi sweet chocolate that has been chopped
- 16 tbsp of unsalted butter
- 8 eggs
- 1/4 cup strong coffee or espresso (I prefer espresso)
We will also need:
- a kettle of boiling water
- parchment paper
- foil
- roasting pan
- 8" Springform cake pan
This cake has to cook in a water bath to turn out properly, hence the roasting pan and kettle of boiling water.
Pre-heat the oven to 325 deg F.
First, start off by chopping up the chocolate. Cut the butter into tbsp. sized pieces. I add the coffee and a little bit of the butter and chocolate to a large bowl and then put it in the microwave for 30 seconds on medium.
You can use a double boiler if you want, but I prefer the microwave. Continue to add the chocolate and butter and microwave, mixing each time and making sure not to burn anything.
Once that is done, set it aside to cool a bit and begin preparing your spring form pan and start your kettle boiling if you haven't already.
We need to cut out some parchment paper in a round disk to line the bottom of the spring form pan. The easiest way to do this is to trace the bottom on the pan with a pencil and then take a paring knife to cut it out.
Once you have done this, spray the bottom of the spring form pan with cooking oil and place the parchment paper on the bottom. This will help the cake release from the pan after it has cooked. You should also wrap the bottom of the pan with two sheets of aluminum foil, to further keep the water out.
Now that the pan is prepared, crack your eggs into a mixer bowl and mix them on high until they double in volume.
Once this is done, begin folding the eggs into the chocolate/butter/coffee mixture, a third at a time.
Only continue adding eggs once you have mostly mixed in the previous third. It is important to fold the eggs in gently.
Now you can pour the mixture into your spring-form pan. Try to smooth the top out as best as you can (this is actually pretty tough to do). Put the spring-form pan into a larger roasting pan and add the boiling water. The water should come up to at least half way up the cake sides. If it doesn't, well, you should have boiled more water.
Now put the cake/water bath into the oven for 20-30 minutes. Take it out when the sides begin to set and the center reads 140 deg F. The center will still be very, very soft (almost jello like), so don't worry about that. Let it cool on a counter for maybe 3 hours before putting it into the fridge over night. Done!
To remove it from the pan, take a very thin knife and slide it around the outside edge. To serve, use a thin knife, dipped in water before each cut - this should minimize the cake sticking to the knife. You can top with a light dusting of powdered sugar if you want (it hides imperfections!). A raspberry sauce also goes very well with it. I don't have any finished pictures because it is currently cooling. I might post some tomorrow, if I remember.
NOTE:
In case you didn't notice, this cake is rich. Very rich. It has a pound of butter and a pound of chocolate for christ sake. This means that you will only need to serve very thin slices, so no taking 1/4 of the cake you fatty.
