Mother's Day Flourless Cake: A Sweet Treat for a Sweet Mom

We have our very first guest blogger!  Thanks Kayla for being our first victim I mean volunteer!  If you would like to be a guest blogger let us know at blogtotaste1@gmail.com.

Hello bloggers and foodies! First of all, I'd like to thank Warren and the gang at Blog To Taste for inviting me to guest blog for them on this very special week. Mother's Day is an important holiday to us, it's the perfect day to show mom just how much you love her! What better way to do that than with food? It's not only the way to a man's heart, it's also the way to a mom's heart! If your mother is anything like mine, she lives for chocolate and so it's the best way to show your appreciation for her.

Luckily, I've got the perfect recipe for any chocolate lover in your life! Today we'll be making a flourless chocolate cake, which is also great for you gluten-free foodies out there! Remove flour from the equation and what we're left with is a decadent, fudge-bomb of a cake that's closer to a chocolate truffle than any cake you've eaten. Add some fresh raspberry sauce and this dessert is sure to impress! 

Flourless Cake

1/2 cup water

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup white sugar
1 cup unsalted butter
6 eggs
18 ounces bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used semi-sweet today)

Raspberry Sauce
12 oz fresh or frozen raspberries
1/4-1/2 white sugar
juice of 1/2-1 lemon
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 cup cold water

For the cake:
Pre-heat oven to 300, prepare one  nine or ten-inch cake pan by greasing with butter or pam. For this cake, I prefer to use a springform pan as it makes it easier to remove. Also have a larger un-greased pan standing by, we'll need this later for the water bath.

Begin by combining water, salt, and sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat. Continue stirring until fully dissolved into a clear thin syrup and set aside.

Melt chocolate chips in a microwaveable bowl or double boiler on the stovetop over medium heat until smooth. Cube butter, it's easier to work with if it's softened.

Add chocolate to a stand mixer. I like to warm the bowl beforehand by running under hot water for about a minute, that way the chocolate is still easy to work with instead of hardening. Beat butter into chocolate on low-medium setting, adding one piece at a time until butter is dissolved and mixture is silky smooth. You may need to scrape the sides of the bowl periodically. Continue beating on medium, slowly pour in water-sugar-salt mixture. Add eggs slowly one by one. Once batter is complete, it should have nearly doubled in volume.

Pour batter into prepared cake pan, set pan inside the larger pan and fill outer pan about halfway up cake pan with boiling water to create water bath.

Carefully transfer to oven and bake at 300 degrees for 45 minutes. Once taken out, center will still look wet. Let stand for about 30 minutes to cool. Cover cake and place in fridge overnight.

For the raspberry sauce:

Begin by placing raspberries (fresh or frozen, I use frozen as they are a much better value!) in saucepan along with 1/4 cup of sugar and juice from 1/2 lemon.

In a small dish, mix 1 cup of cold water and 2 table spoons of cornstarch until completely dissolved, add to saucepan with the other ingredients.

Once finished, strain through a sieve (or cheese cloth if you're a fancy pants), and you're done! You can either serve hot or cold, I prefer cold because it's a bit more refreshing.

Mix ingredients together and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Berries should begin to break down but you may use your spoon to crush them easily. Once boiling, reduce to medium-low heat and allow to simmer 5-10 minutes, stirring constantly. At this point, you'll want to taste test. Add sugar to your liking. My family likes things on the sweeter side, so I used just shy of 1/2 cup of sugar in all. Also, we're big citrus fans in our home so I also used the juice of a whole lemon instead of just half. Again, this is all personal preference. You can also swap your citrus for any other kind, next time I'll be trying orange instead!

Sauce will thicken a bit and become more of a syrup consistency. At this point, remove from heat. Let sauce stand for a few minutes to thicken a bit more.

Pour mixture into blender or use immersion blender to create a smooth sauce. For this, I used my trusty Nutribullet for about 30 seconds!

Plating!
Dust the top of the cake with powdered sugar. To remove cake from pan, run a knife under warm water for about 30-60 seconds. Unlock spring, run knife along the edge of the pan gently, separating cake from pan. Lift the pan from around the cake and set aside. If you used a regular cake pan, you can also set pan in warm water bath for about ten seconds and invert onto serving plate. I haven't tried this method so I can't vouch for it but supposedly it works pretty well!

Cut the cake as you normally would, keep in mind this cake is extremely rich so a little goes a long way! Drizzle with your freshly-made raspberry sauce and voila! Your decadent flourless chocolate cake is ready to be served and enjoyed by all!

Let me know how this recipe turned out for you and if you made any tweaks to your liking! Thanks again to Warren and the ladies of Blog To Taste, I hope you'll have me again soon!

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