The Best Flourless Chocolate Cake Recipe

A simplification before you begin—you will have three bowls of ingredients for this flourless chocolate cake recipe:

• the melted chocolate in a very large bowl
• the egg yolks in the stand mixer bowl
• the soft peak heavy cream in a medium size bowl

You will fold the eggs into the chocolate, then fold in the cream into the flourless chocolate cake batter….it’s that simple!

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Coat a 9 inch round cake pan (not a springform pan) with vegetable oil. Line the bottom with a parchment round. Set aside.

3. Melt the chocolate in a large metal bowl, over hot water, keeping it warm. Alternatively, you can melt the chocolate in a microwave, but this must be done carefully at 15 second intervals, then stirred, then returned to microwave. Continue until melted. If you overheat the chocolate, it will burn and be ruined.

4. Whip the cream in a separate medium bowl, with the 2 tablespoons of sugar, until the cream forms soft peaks. Set aside.

5. In the bowl of a stand mixer, whip the room temperature eggs on high speed. Mix until eggs have doubled in volume. Add the dash of salt and vanilla extract. Gradually add the 1/2 cup white sugar to the eggs, in stages. Continue to whip the eggs until they have tripled in volume and are light and fluffy.

Use room temperature eggs.

Why room temperature? Because if you add cold eggs to the chocolate, the chocolate will not remain smooth, but will begin to solidify due to the cold liquid. A quick way to bring eggs to room temperature is to place them in a bowl of very warm water for approximately 15 minutes.

6. Pour the warm coffee into the chocolate, stirring gently until combined. Fold the eggs into the chocolate mixture, in three additions. Fold in cream.

7. Pour the batter into the parchment lined pan.

8. Instead of placing the cake directly into a water bath, fill a pan with hot water and place on bottom oven rack. Place cake directly on middle rack.

9. Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until the cake is still slightly undone in the center (it will continue to cook as it cools). Cool cake on a wire rack.

10. To remove it from the mold, slide a knife around the sides of the cake to loosen it from the pan. Cover the top of the pan with a serving platter, and turn right side up.

11. Sprinkle cake with cocoa powder and edible gold dust. Store cake in refrigerator, and for optimum flavor, let cake sit at room temperature several minutes before serving. Cake keeps best refrigerated for up to 5 days.