Flourless Chocolate Cake

This recipe is how I make flourless chocolate cake which is not the usual way but I think it yields better results with the bonus that it’s easier to make. That’s a double win in my books! Usually, flourless chocolate cake is made by beating egg whites then folding it through the batter to make it rise. However, I almost always found that the cake would rise while baking, but then collapse into a crater while cooling. Or, if it didn’t collapse while cooling, I would tip toe around it with fear that the slightest floor vibration would make it collapse, and scold Dozer if he dared to trot through the house with his heavy footed paws. Even if it held up while cooling, with the first cut, it would definitely collapse. And forget decorations! OR – use the decorations to hide the crater. You get my drift. I like flourless chocolate cake – and one of my best friends’ is gluten free. The crater surface annoyed me. So I fixed it. 🙂 A simple “dump and mix” version made with the aid of a bit of baking powder which makes the same fudge flourless chocolate cake that is much more stable. It took a few goes to get it right. I was interested to find that almond flour / almond meal is highly sensitive to baking powder. Normally, the flour to baking powder ratio is 1 cup : 2 teaspoons, so I tried this with almond flour. The lift this gave the cake while baking was astonishing – it almost overflowed. Then when I took it out of the oven, it collapsed. Again – a crater. Humph! So I tried again, drastically cutting down the baking powder to 1/4 tsp to 1 cup of almond flour. And was amazed that it worked – perfectly. Enough lift to give this cake a crumb like a cake, rather than being brownie-fudgey, but not so much that the surface rises then collapses into a carter surface. No more craters! No more craters! It is really hard to capture the texture of this cake in photos. It’s fudgey, but not dense fudgey like brownies. It’s got more of a cake-like texture, but it is much fudgier than normal cakes. Fudgier than my Chocolate Fudge Cake. It looks like it’s going to crumble but it doesn’t because it’s so moist. It’s intensely chocolatey with beautiful almond undertones, and the surface has a fine crackly layer – like brownies. It’s really, really good. I’ve made it multiple times since I created it and have no intentions of ever reverting back to the “normal” way of making flourless chocolate cakes i.e. beating egg whites. It’s not just easier. I truly think this is better. And…you know…..NO CRATER SURFACE!!!! 😉 – Nagi xx PS. I’ve also finally shared my Whole Orange Cake, which is also flourless and child’s play to make! It’s the cake I made at a wedding I’ve spoken about previously which was held on a remote river. I made a tiered wedding cake from scratch without an oven. Curious…???

WATCH HOW TO MAKE IT

Flourless Chocolate Cake recipe video! Best way to see the texture of the cake i.e. moist, tender crumb but fudgey, not dense and mud cake like. It was difficult to capture in photos. 🙂