This flourless chocolate cake is the epitome of rich and decadence. Made with 70% dark chocolate and butter, the fat content lends to a melt-in-your-mouth feel. It looks impressive but it’s so easy to make. This cake is sure to elevate any dinner party or just a regular ol’ Sunday afternoon.

The Perfect Stand-Alone Chocolate Cake

You guysssss. This flourless chocolate cake will make all of your deepest chocolate desires come true. *cue Hall and Oates – You Make My Dreams*

Lemme tells ya allllll the reasons why this is the best cake I’ve ever had. If you know me, I don’t use superlatives gently when it comes to food, so I when I do, I really mean it.

This cake is rich in flavour, the deepest chocolate flavour with a touch of bitterness from the 70% cacao solids and cocoa powder. It’s sweet but not too sweet. It’s decadent, fudgey and full-bodied yet light and has that melt-in-your-mouth feel. It has a very thin layer of crispiness on the outside that gives away with a light crack of your fork – imagine your favourite brownies with the crispy wispy layer on top – that’s it. It’s everything you’re looking for in a chocolate cake.

The Inspiration

The inspiration for a flourless chocolate cake came from a discussion with one of my patients the other day. We were talking about how systemically life has changed during this covid 19 and just joked about all the trends we have been seeing. Ie. we both shared a laugh about toilet paper being the most expensive currency, canned goods flying off the shelves and people all of a sudden flocking to the beaches in groups.

Then she said something that just cracked me up, “It’s like covid is turning everyone into bakers or something! I can’t find flour anywhere!” At that time, I hadn’t been to a grocery store yet to assess the situation myself but I have heard from a couple other colleagues as well that flour is disappearing just like toilet paper.

Not to fret, enter the flourless chocolate cake!

How to make flourless chocolate cake

This recipe for this flourless chocolate cake is simple to put together as it only has a few ingredients but the technique you use really matters here. Since there are no powder leaveners or flour, the cake relies solely on the eggs for volume. The eggs need to be whipped up properly to give the cake aeration and rise. I’ve outlined a few tips below:

Make sure your egg whites go into a dry squeaky clean bowl and that you use a dry squeaky clean whisk/whisk attachment to whip it up. Any trace of fat, water or other residues can cause your egg whites to stay flat – they won’t whip up!
Use a medium to high speed to whip up the egg whites. You want soft peaks, not stiff peaks. Overbeating will cause the egg whites to dry out and your cake will collapse when you remove it from the oven.
What do soft peaks look like? The best way to describe it is that it is sturdy enough to hold structure but still fluid enough to move smoothly
The egg yolks are a little more forgiving. The cues you’re looking for to stop beating is an increase in volume (nearly double) and a pale yellow colour

For more chocolate cake recipes, check out these:

Recipe for Flourless Chocolate Cake