Easy, Scrumptious, Flourless Chocolate Cake for Your Valentine

A few years ago, this flourless chocolate cake recipe in the Sunday paper caught my eye and I saved it.  But I never made it until a few months ago.  I can’t believe this treasure of a dessert has been waiting in the wings of my recipe notebook!  In the interest of full disclosure, when I made the dessert, it came out of the oven a sunken, not-very-appetizing concoction.

Looks can be deceiving.

John has recently declared this his Favorite. Dessert. Ever.  Perfect for Valentine’s Day!

Ingredients:  7 oz really good (45-50% cocoa) semisweet chocolate, 3/4 cup butter, 1 cup sugar (divided), 4 eggs (separated), vanilla ice cream, fresh raspberries.

1. Preheat oven to 300 degress.  Melt chocolate and butter in a double boiler.  Stir together half the sugar and four yolks; add to melted chocolate concoction.  By the way, that’s Matt, my nephew and one of my sweet valentines.  He’s a chocolate connoisseur and I’m convinced that he may one day have his own show on the food channel as a dessert critic.

Here’s a close-up:

2.  Using an electric mixer, beat the egg whites and 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.

I warned you.  It’s not very pretty.

4.  To make the optional chocolate syrup, cook 2 squares unsweetened chocolate and 1/3 cup water in a heavy saucepan over low heat until chocolate blends with water (about 3 to 5 minutes).  Add 1/3 cup sugar, stirring until sugar dissolves (about 4 minutes). Remove from heat and stir in 3 tablespoons butter.  Stir in 1/2 teaspoon vanilla.

5.  Top with vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup.  Garnish with fresh raspberries.

Notes:  I use a little less sugar (let’s say 1/3 cup instead of 1/2 cup) in both the chocolate concoction and the egg whites. Since the chocolate is semisweet, it’s still quite sweet.

To make individual servings, substitute nine ramekins or small oven-safe coffee cups and bake 30 minutes.

Enjoy!