(almost) Flourless Chocolate Cake

Hmm... please let me tell you a fact, first.

Many of you may think "flourless" means "less calories" because it will have less carb. Sadly, that's NOT the case! To make the structure of cake without flour, we will need much more fat - I mean, saturated fat.

This "(almost) Flourless Chocolate Cake" has about 2,100 calories and 2/3 of the total calories are from fat, mostly butter. However, you will never eat a whole cake anyway. Slice the cake into 12 pieces and you will end up only 175, which is much less than 210 from a KitKat chocolate bar.

Oh! and please don't forget to garnish this cake with a drop of whipped cream or some berries. Garnishing the cake will not help your calorie calculation, but will definitely help the flavor! ;-)


(almost) Flourless Chocolate Cake

(Yield: one 9-inch cake, 12 servings / Cooking time: 1 hour)

Ingredients:
+ 12 oz (3/4 pound) bittersweet chocolate (60% cacao)
+ 4 oz (1/4 pound) semi-sweet chocolate
+ 1 Tbsp all-purpose flour
+ 10 Tbsp (1.5 stick) salted butter
+ 4 eggs
+ 1 tsp sugar
+ (option) whipped cream & berries




Procedures:

1. Preheat oven to 425°F (~218°C), and prepare a 9-inch springform pan* with parchment paper cut into the bottom.


* If you don't have springform pan, you can use regular 9-inch cake pan - although I think springform pan is much easier to mold out the chocolate cake. Because this specific chocolate cake, which has almost no flour in the batter, has very weak structure, it can crumble when you flip the cake to take out from a regular mold. I would recommend a springform pan over regular cake pan.

2. Chop chocolate into small pieces (about nickel size).


3. Microwave 1 minute and 20 seconds*. Most of the chocolate should melt and you might see some small chunks in the center. Swirl the chocolate with a spoon and the chunks will melt away. If those are not melting, microwave another 10 seconds. The melted chocolate should have smooth consistency.




* If you don't want to use microwave, you can always melt the chocolate in a traditional way, over a double boiler.

4. Melt butter in microwave for 20 seconds as well.


5. Combine the butter into melted chocolate. Mix well until all the butter is incorporated into chocolate. Let the mixture cool to around 95°F (35°C).


6. Separate egg yolks and egg whites from four eggs. Beat egg yolks.


7. Add beaten egg yolks to the cooled down(90°F or ~32°C) chocolate butter mixture.


8. Incorporate sifted flour into the chocolate mixture. Mix well until the mixture has homogeneous consistency.


9. Beat egg whites with 1 tsp of sugar until soft peak stage.

Add sugar when the egg whites start having bubbles.


Beat egg whites until soft peak stage.

10. Stir only 1/4 of beaten egg whites into chocolate mixture to lighten up the chocolate mixture.


11. Then, fold the rest of beaten egg whites into the chocolate mixture. Try not to deflate the egg whites. Fold until you cannot see the trace of egg whites, and the mixture has homogeneous consistency.


12. Pour the chocolate cake batter into the parchment lined springform pan.


13. Smooth out the top.


14. Bake the cake for 15 minutes in the center rack. After 15 minutes, turn off the heat and leave the oven door ajar. Let the cake cool in the oven for about 30 minutes.


15. When the cake has cooled enough, take out the cake pan. The top should be a bit crusty and the center should be moist.


16. Unmold the cake and cut into wedges. Garnish with whipped cream or some berries.

Enjoy~