Flourless chocolate cake recipes

Cafe Society
1

Passover is coming up in a few days, and I’m looking for a good flourless chocolate cake recipe, the dense, fudgy kind. I’ve got one which is light and eggy and involves lots of ground hazelnuts, but I’m looking for the kind that will harden your arteries on sight. Any recipes, folks?

(Too bad my grandfather passed away before I realized that there is no reason that Passover cake has to be made with matzo meal and therefore taste nasty. The poor man’s birthday frequently fell during Passover, but that man loved a good cake. However, matzo meal and cake do not belong in the same sentence. It’s just wrong.)

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Here’s one I’ve got in my recipe box but haven’t had a chance to try yet. Epicurious is usually a great bet when it ocmes to trying out new recipes, if you’ve got the time to read all the past reviews (and any modifications they recommend).

3

This is my version of Claudia Roden’s Chocolate Almond cake … it’s rich and fudgy, is easy to make, keeps well and is wonderful hot or cold. I’ve made it dozens of times, it’s just about my favourite cake recipe.
250g good quality dark chocolate
2 tablespoons milk
125g ground almonds (I like to buy raw almonds with skin and grind them myself in the food processor. The final result is a bit coarser than if you buy ready ground almonds, but you get a nice almondy flavour because the almonds taste fresher. Or you can buy ready ground almond meal.)
6 tablespoons sugar
6 eggs, separated

butter, flour for the pan.

Melt the chocolate with the milk. I like to separate the eggs, beat the whites until stiff, and then beat the yolks separately with the sugar until they are white and fluffy. I think this makes for a cake with a bit lighter texture, but you don’t have to do this is you’re short of time. Just beat the whites until stiff.

Mix the melted chocolate with the ground almonds, sugar and egg yolks. Fold the stiffened egg whites through.

I’ve found that the easiest thing to make this cake in is one of those cake tins with the detachable bottoms, ring tins? But whatever you use, you need a reasonable sized one, since the cake rises more than you would expect. Grease the cake tin with butter and sprinke with flour.

Bake in a moderate oven (about 230-250 I suppose) for 3/4 to 1 hour. It’s cooked when it’s just set in the middle, but a bit of time more or less doesn’t make a lot of difference. It’s supposed to be a bit squidgy.
The cake will rise a lot, but as it cools it will slump, that’s part of the deal. You can get it to slump less if you turn the oven off, open the door and leave the cake to cool slowly. You can sprinkle it with caster sugar, but I prefer cocoa.

It’s great hot, or cool, served with cream or raspberry puree. It keeps for days, it freezes well and it’s just yummy. It’s hard to get wrong really. I’ve made it so many times that the page in the book is all covered in chocolate blobs and you can’t read some bits of the recipe.

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I’d like to point out that most Jewish people do not cook with corn or bean products on Passover, so anything involving corn syrup or corn starch is out.

5

Julia Child has a great recipe here: http://recipeview.com/Cakes/Cakes3810.htm
It may not be as fudgy as you like though; I’ve made it and remember it to be rich but fairly light.

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[bump]

SHeesh, I missed the responses. Must have been busy!

Claudia Roden’s recipe is actually my backup (though I usually do it with hazelnuts rather than almonds, and sprinkle it with cinnamon). It does indeed rock. I’m thinking, though, of the kind that’s so dense that it’s almost like fudge. They make it at a bakery near my house - a 6" cake serves 6 - 8 people according to them, and I was skeptical, but they were right.

Anyway, I don’t have any cake recipes that involve corn syrup, at least not that I use regularly, so that’s not an issue. Maybe I’ll try the Julia Child one? I dunno - let’s see what I have in the house. Any more ideas? Gotta start baking soon!

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Hey Eva, here’s two good chocolate cake recipes from the Low Carb crowd. One is “FFCC - Fudgy, Flourless Chocolate Cake” and the other is a Chocolate Mayonnaise cake.

The FFCC is just like fudge. The other is more muffin-tasting to me.

You will probably want to use regular sugar and all. Although I do think the sugar substitutes mentioned are kosher.

FFCC:
Ingredients:
6 oz Hershey?s unsweetened baking chocolate
2 sticks butter
5 eggs
1 cup davinci chocolate ( or any other flavor) syrup warmed with ? C ground erythritol and 2 tsp Stevia Plus ( made by Sweetleaf)?not regular liquid stevia
*NOTE TO EVA: You will want 1 cup of liquid - so use a mixture of water + dissolved sugar to get your mix. Or buy full-sweetened chocolate syrup (DaVinci’s or Torani’s)

Mix sweeteners into warmed Davinci.

Melt chocolate in microwave or double boiler. Cut butter into small slices and slowly mix into chocolate one piece at a time. When butter and chocolate are mixed, add sweetened liquid and blend well. Add eggs, one at a time just until batter is well blended. Pour into cake pan, pie pan, or glass baking dish.

Bake in water bath at 300 for 45-50 minutes. Cake should be slightly sponge-like to the touch. Cool to room temp and refrigerate until chilled through. Cut into 10 slices.

This cake may be frozen.
Kahlua syrup is good, and so is peppermint paddy

Chocolate Mayonnaise Pound Cake
(As per Fitday there are 68g of carbs for the whole cake)

3 cups almond flour
1 cup vital wheat gluten
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
1-1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
4 eggs
1/2 cup Erythritol
1-1/2 teaspoons liquid Splenda
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup mayonnaise
2/3 cup vanilla Davinci syrup
2/3 cup cream
*NOTE TO EVA: Erythiritol is a sugar substitute. You can probably substitute 1 cup of sugar and 2/3 cup of water for the E, Splenda and syrup.

Put ingredients into food processor in order listed and process for 30 seconds, scrape down sides and process for another 1-1/2 minutes.

Pour batter into a greased and floured bunt pan and bake.
(I use cake release(wal-mart in craft section) and then just brushed up the sides of the pan as well as the tube in the middle. It works great and there’s no mess.)

Bake as 325° for 45 to 50 minutes or until cake tester inserted in center comes out clean.

8

Oh one more.

I used to work for a restaurant who’s signature dessert was “Boule de Neige” (snowball). A flourless chocolate cake made with coffee and rum that was covered in peaks of whipped cream.

Absolutely the most gut-busting, thick, chocolately thing you could ever eat.

Here’s a recipe:
10 oz semisweet chocolate, coarsley chopped or u
3/4 C strong brewed coffee
1 1/4 C sugar
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature
5 eggs
1 oz dark rum or coffee liqueur (optional)
2 pints heavy (whipping) cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 5 1/2" x 9" loaf pan. In double
boiler, melt together chocolate, coffee & sugar over low heat. Set aside to
cool for 10 minutes. Turn
mixture into a medium bowl, and with an electric mixer, add butter until
incorporated. Add eggs one at a time. Add rum now, if using it.
Pour mixture into the loaf pan; bake 1 hour until the mixture is puffed &
cracked. Cool to room temp on a rack, then refrigerate overnight.

To serve:In a bowl, whip the cream until it holds stiff peaks. Use an ice
cream scoop & shape the chocolate into balls. Fit a pastry bag with a star
tip & pipe each boule with a coating of whipped cream.

LAZY WAY TO SERVE**********************
Skip the whipping cream. Buy the aerosol stuff or the tub. Have everyone
scoop out what they want & squirt the whipped stuff on. Tastes every bit as
good if you aren’t worried about presentation.

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Oooh, it’s too late to do that for tonight, but it looks lovely.

I did one I haven’t tried before, somewhat similar to Claudia Roden’s, but with no butter and more eggs - I like hers better. (This one called for more sugar and sweeter chocolate, and IMO it came out too sweet.) I’ll post later if I have time.