Flourless chocolate souffle cake

I have been wanting to try this cake for years, so I thought it only fitting that I make it for Valentine's day...buuuuut I missed the Valentine's deadline. Eh, probably for the best - in the looks department, this cake is very unimpressive (infact it's downright ugly)! But no worries - what it lacks in charm it makes up for in taste.
I found this version in Parade magazine (that comes in the Sunday paper) from 2/06/11. It is, quite possibly, the ugliest cake I have ever made...at first sight, it hurt my heart...but I am ok with that now.

Flourless Chocolate Cake:

7 oz. semi-sweet chocolate
3/4 cup butter
1 cup sugar, divided
4 eggs, separated

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Melt chocolate and butter in a double boiler. Stir together half the sugar and four yolks; add to melted chocolate concoction.




2. Using an electric mixer, beat the egg whites; slowly add remaining 1/2 cup sugar until stiff peaks form. Fold mixture into chocolate. Pour into a greased 9-inch cake pan.


3. Bake 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out with just a few crumbs on it. Cool 30 minutes before removing from pan. Dust with powdered sugar.


Ok, so I just could not bear to serve an ugly cake intentionally. I decided to dress it up with some ganache. I used this simple recipe, but scaled it down to 4 servings.

Ganache I

These are the amounts I used:

5 oz semi-sweet chocolate
1/2 cup heavy cream


1.Chop the chocolate into small pieces and place it in a large stainless steel bowl (um I used chocolate chips and a glass bowl)

2.In a large, high sided saucepan, heat cream over medium high heat, stirring frequently, until it starts to boil. At this point, the cream will want to boil over, so keep an eye on it! Immediately remove from heat and pour over chopped chocolate.






3.Stir until chocolate is completely melted and mixture is smooth. Cool completely and then store in refrigerator. Ganache can be reheated in a stainless steel bowl over hot, but not boiling, water.

I turned the cracked, ugly cake out onto a cake board, then iced with my ganache...still ugly, but not as bad...this cake turned out to be very rich and delicious. If you are a chocolate lover, it's definitely one for you!





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