Chocolate Brithday Desserts: Flourless Chocolate Cake

As mentioned in my previous Chocolate Birthday Desserts post, it was my friend Eriks Birthday this past weekend and I put myself in charge of desserts.  There was going to be a lot of people and I need a gluten free dessert that hopefully everyone would enjoy.  The first thing that came to mind was a flourless chocolate cake.  Any time I have had this cake, it has been really dense and rich, so you only need a tiny peice of it, which meant a 8" round cake would feed lots of people. 

This recipe came from Martha Stewart's Fresh Flavor Fast Cookbook and was super quick to whip up, it just needed pleanty of oven time.  I was a bit afraid I was going to really screw this up.  You have to beat the eggs whites twice to two different consistancies and they are basically the cake.  I assume because of the eggs, this cake was suprisingly light compared to similar cakes I've had.  It was still very rich, but was a bit more spongy in the center.  Maybe I didn't bake it long enough, I couldn't tell if it was pulling from the pan edges, but it had been in the oven 15 or more minutes than the recipe time, so I decided it needed to come out.  It was still super yummy and Erik was pleasently suprised by his second dessert that came out with candles and a loud, bar filling version of "Happy Birthday."  Give it a try, it's not as hard as it sounds!

Cooling, precandles

Flourless Chocolate Cake
8 to 10 servings

• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for pan
• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate chips (I had a bit less, so I added a tiny bit of dark chocolate chips)
• 6 large eggs, separated
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• Confectioners' sugar, for dusting

1. Preheat the oven to 275 degrees with the rack in the center. Butter the bottom and sides of a 9-inch springform pan. Set aside.
2. Place butter and chocolate in a large heatproof bowl and place over, not in a sause pan of simmering water.  Stir occasionally until almost melted.  Remove from heat and stir until completely melted.  Whisk in egg yolks. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually add granulated sugar, and continue beating until glossy stiff peaks form.
4. Whisk 1/4 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture; then gently fold in remaining egg whites.
5. Pour batter into the prepared pan, and smooth the top with a rubber spatula. Bake until the cake pulls away from the sides of the pan and is set in the center, 45 to 50 minutes.
6. Cool completely on a wire rack; remove sides of pan. Serve at room temperature, dusted with confectioners' sugar.

Enjoy! 

He was very excited about this cake