Flourless Chocolate Cake | Gemma's Bigger Bolder Baking

Hi Bold Bakers! Easter is a pretty important holiday in Ireland. My mum would cook lamb to celebrate the beginning of spring and we would have a big chocolate cake for dessert. Now one of my Bold Bakers, Taya, reminded me of a cake I made a few years ago for Easter and she makes it for Passover. It is a flourless chocolate cake. It is so good. It's like a fudgy, brownie cake. The recipe can be found on BiggerBolderBaking.com along with lots of my other spring and Easter recipes so make sure you check it out. Okay, let's get started in a large bowl. Add in butter and chocolate. So now what you want to do is just melt these two ingredients together. Now you can do this gently in the microwave or you can do it over a bain-marie. So now this is lovely and melted. You don't ever want to get chocolate too hot because it has a tendency to burn so like I said, just be careful as you melt it. Now into this I'm going to add in some sugar, salt, and vanilla extract. And then just whisk all these ingredients together. So the reason that we're adding this in now before the eggs is so that the sugar can actually cool down the chocolate before we add in our eggs. So my go-to chocolate is 72% cocoa solids. The reason I love to use it is because it's bittersweet. So you get a little bit of sweetness but you also get that lovely kind of rich bitterness from the chocolate. It works really well for this cake. Okay, lovely, now that this has cooled down a little bit, we're going to add in our egg yolks. And then just go ahead and whisk them in. So these are our egg yolks. Now we kept our whites separate because we're going to whip them up in a few minutes and fold it into this cake. And the egg whites are actually what leavens the cake and makes it rise. And it's one of the reasons why you don't have to have flour in this cake. Okay, this is looking good. Now for a little bit more chocolate, I'm going to sift over some cocoa powder. Now you know that I love all of my bold bakers equally and I always try and accommodate my vegetarian and vegan bold bakers. But unfortunately for this cake, you can't substitute the eggs because they're such an important ingredient. But make sure you check my website because I've got loads of egg-free recipes there. Okay, this is looking good. And then go again with your whisk and just mix this in. Now a lot of people ask me about cocoa powder. I use unsweetened cocoa powder. You can use Dutch process. I find it can be a little bit bitter sometimes. But just use something that's sugar-free for sure so it doesn't mess with the sugar in your recipe. Okay, this mix is looking pretty good. I'm going to set it aside now and we're going to whip up our egg whites. Now egg whites whip up best when they're at room temperature. They just get lovely and fluffy. So take them out of the fridge, let them sit for a few hours, and they'll just whip up so much better. I'm going to add these into my stand mixer but you can also use an electric hand mixer to whip up your egg whites. So now I'm going to turn my machine onto like a medium slow speed and just whip up the egg whites really gently. So here's a funny little tip I've never told you before and actually the same thing applies to yeast. What you want to do is just wake it up gently for around two minutes, whip it up on a low speed, same when you're making a bread dough, and then crank it up and let all that air get into it. But those few minutes by itself on slow, just wake everything up and get them activated. So this is good. It's getting a little bit foamy. It's been around two minutes. Now what I'm going to do is crank up the speed and you'll So here's a little secret of things that happen in kitchens. When I worked in a Michelin star restaurant, we used to make macaroons, and we used to leave our egg whites sitting out, not for one day or two days, but three, four, even five days at room temperature in the kitchen in the restaurant. And it just makes for much better flavor, texture, and they whip up so much better. I know it sounds kind of crazy, but I ate them and I'm still standing, and they were absolutely delicious. Okay, this is looking good. The egg whites have whipped up really nice and stiff. Now it's time to take this and fold it into our chocolate mixture. So here we're going to do something called introducing, and what that means is to add one mixture into another. Because the egg whites are different texture, you add a little bit into the chocolate mix, fold that in carefully, and then you can add in the rest. It just means that you'll fold it in so much better and evenly. Now the aim of the game here is to keep all those lovely bubbles that you created, because that's what's going to make our cake rise. And one tip as well, I'm full of tips and tricks today for some reason, but one tip as well is to use a metal spoon with a thin edge, because it won't knock out all of your air. If you use a wooden spoon or a spatula, they're kind of thick and chunky, you want to use a metal spoon. So our first bit of egg white is mixed in, now I'm going to go ahead and add in all the rest. By adding that little bit in first, it loosens up your mix and makes it easier to fold in the rest of the egg whites. Oh my gosh, this definitely looks like a brownie batter, doesn't it? Really fluffy and rich and dark, that's why I'm telling you, you want to use that bittersweet chocolate, it just takes this cake to a whole other level. Okay, just keep going until you don't see your egg whites anymore, but don't overmix it. This is gorgeous. Now I'm going to take this and put it straight into my tin. So here I have a 9-inch springform tin, or a cheesecake tin, and it has been buttered and lined so we can get our cake out of there easily. Then just go ahead and scoop your fluffy chocolate cake into your tin. Look at how thick and gorgeous that is. Believe me, when you see this cake being cut, you are definitely going to want to make it. Flatten out the top with your spatula a little bit. As you can see, this makes a pretty big cake. So perfect for Easter or Passover, when family and friends are around. And this cake is ready for the oven. Bake this cake off at 350°F or 180°C for roughly 40-45 minutes. Now just a little note about this cake, you don't want to overbake it. You want it to be all that fudgy, yummy, chocolatey-ness in the middle. So don't go longer than 45 minutes. So while my cake is in the oven, I'm going to make good use of my time and decorate eggs for the top of my cake. Now these look so pretty for Easter. All you do is get a little bowl of water, and into this I'm going to add a little bit of blue food coloring. You can add any color that you want your eggs, that's totally fine. Or you want them lots of different colors. Donuts. Into this I'm going to add in a little bit of vinegar and some oil. So now the oil gives your eggs a little bit of a marbled effect, it's really pretty when they're finished. Okay, this is the blue that I want. Then I'm going to take some hard-boiled eggs, make sure that they're white-shelled eggs so it'll take the dye better. And dip it into my dye. And you just want to roll them around in there and just let them soak up the color. Keep them moving so the color is even all the way throughout. And it just takes a few minutes. And you'll see the eggs take the dye pretty fast. There you go, look at that. Gorgeous. Then I'm going to dip another one. Dip as many as you want, I'm going to do three for the top of my cake. As you can see, I made my eggs kind of look like robin's eggs, that beautiful kind of teal, bluey color. But to give my eggs a little bit more pizzazz, I'm going to add a little bit of gold edible luster on the outside. Just to make them sparkle that little bit more. If you don't have it, don't worry about it, they're still going to look gorgeous. Perfect. Okay, and then set these aside, make sure that they're totally dry, and let's go check on our cake. So my cake took exactly 45 minutes. Now come here to me because I want you to see exactly what it's supposed to look like when it comes out of the oven. If you press down in the center, you can feel that it's a little bit soft under your finger, which means that there is fudgy goodness underneath there. You don't want to overcook this cake because it'll dry out. Then also, the nature of this cake is that it will sink a little bit when it comes out of the oven. So if it falls or cracks even, that is totally fine, it's just what it does, it'll still taste great. Now I'm going to set this aside, let it cool down, and then we can decorate it. So my cake is on my serving platter. Now here's the beauty of this cake, it tastes even better when you make it the day before. Let it rest, let all those flavors marry together, and then you'll have it ready for Easter or for Passover. So here I have a bowl of chocolate ganache, this is great to serve on top of cakes and it gives it a really beautiful, professional finish. The recipe for this can be found on BiggerBolderBaking.com, all it is is chocolate and a little bit of cream. So go ahead and pour it onto the top of your cake, and then just with a spatula, just move it around and run it over the top. This is my kind of cake decorating, something that doesn't need a huge amount of technique but still looks beautiful in the end. Gorgeous. There's our ganache. So to give the effect of creating a little nest for our eggs, I have some grated chocolate, I'm just going to sprinkle that in the center of the cake. It kind of looks like little bits of twigs. And then we are going to place our beautiful robin's eggs on top. Look at that, how gorgeous is that, and how simple as well. So if you think this cake looks good now, wait and I show you what's on the inside. Just check that out, what did I promise you? Brownie, fudgy, chocolate goodness. This cake is to die for. My favorite part of the job. So here's the thing about this cake. Cut yourself a big slice, pop it into the microwave for around 20 seconds, and it is heaven on earth when it comes out. The ganache is kind of melted, this cake is insanely good. No matter what holiday you celebrate, this fudgy chocolate cake is the perfect way to welcome the arrival of spring. Thank you so much for watching, I hope you enjoyed this episode, and I'll see you back here really soon for more Bigger Bolder Baking.