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A wonderfully rich and chocolatey flourless chocolate cake that’s perfect for dessert with fruit and a dollop of cream

A flourless chocolate cake has been requested over and over again, for years… It’s super chocolatey, rich and heavenly.

What is a flourless chocolate cake?

A typical basic chocolate sponge is usually a mix of butter, sugar, eggs, flour and chocolate in some form such as melted chocolate or cocoa powder – this is a basic chocolate sponge. A flourless chocolate cake is a level above this in a number of ways, because it’s so easy to make, but more of a luxurious result.

The end result is quite a delicious concoction of theoretically a chocolate cake, but it’s more like a luxurious chocolate torte. This beauty of a recipe is a thick, dense and deliciously fudgy bake and that is exactly how it should be. It’s meant to be more like a brownie, or a mixture of a chocolate truffle in a bake and it is glorious.

Flour vs no flour

The difference between a regular chocolate cake and this flourless chocolate cake is quite astronomical really, but that is the point. This is the sort of bake that I would maybe quickly make for a dinner party or an occasion, or because we want something tasty – a standard birthday cake is so different on the scale.

This recipe is naturally gluten free, so it easily suits anyone on a gluten free diet which is always handy. There are other dry ingredients in the recipe still to make sure that the cake works in the way that it should, so it’s always worth checking your other ingredients to make sure that they are also gluten free as a precaution.

Cake ingredients

There are eight ingredients in this bake, some are technically optional, but I would say they are all worth using for the best flavour of the bake possible.

Chocolate – I would always recommend using 70% or darker cocoa content chocolate for the best bake texture and end result – this bake is meant to be super rich.
Butter – I use a block butter, but a margarine will work
Sugar – I love using light brown soft sugar for the natural caramel undertones that appear in the bake, but a golden caster sugar or even white caster sugar does also work
Vanilla – I adore the flavour that vanilla add’s to a bake, but this is optional
Salt – I also adore the flavour that salt adds as it creates another layer to the recipe, but again this is optional
Coffee – much like my chocolate fudge cake recipe, the coffee helps make the chocolate taste even more chocolate, and it’s SO worth using. It does NOT make the end bake end up tasting like coffee
Eggs – I tend to use medium eggs so I have consistency between my bakes, but you can use 3 large eggs instead of 4 medium
Cocoa powder – I use a strong cocoa content cocoa powder for my bakes as I adore the richness it brings compared to one with added sugar

To whip the eggs or not

For my flourless chocolate cake, I purposely wanted to go ultra simple and basic in the method and ingredients. I wanted this to be a recipe that anyone could whack together nice and quickly and get into the oven baking as soon as possible – so I went with the method of not whipping the eggs. This results in a flourless chocolate cake that is quite shallow in depth once baked (it’s meant to be) but super dense and brownie like which is what I adore.

However, you can whip the eggs if you want, for a different end result. If you want to try the egg whipping method, you can whip the eggs and sugar for a few minutes until they’re very mousse like (much like you do with my brownie recipe) and then you fold this into the rest of the mixture.

The bake times and end results does change with this method, but that’s not a bad thing – I find it can take longer to bake – more 35+ minutes, but it’s a delicious cake as well. Both methods are utterly scrumptious.

For the method that I typically use, you melt the chocolate and butter together in a bowl, until smooth. Then, add in the sugar, vanilla, salt and coffee and stir again, and then the eggs, and cocoa powder and stir until smooth. Pour into one tin, and bake!

Toppings and how to serve

When you have such a luxurious bake like this, sometimes it’s best to stick to simplicity when it comes to the decoration, so I like to do a. dusting of cocoa powder to just intensify the chocolate even ore than the bake already has. However, you can use a dusting of icing sugar instead for something sweet, or even make a simple ganache.

I love to serve my flourless chocolate cake with a dollop of lightly whipped cream, or clotted cream for extra taste, and then some fresh berries to cut through the thick chocolate nature of the flavour. You can of course serve it however you want.

I usually let my cake set fully and have it cool, but you can serve it warm – it will just be slightly gooey when you cut into it. I like to portion mine up and then maybe microwave it later on if I want it gooey again

Tips & tricks

This recipe is best on the day of baking, but can be kept in the fridge for 3-4+ days once made
You can freeze this cake for 3+ months
I use this 8″ cake tin in my bake – but it’s quite a shallow cake so a thinner one should be fine
See notes on whipping the eggs for a different texture cake if you want to try that instead
The coffee brings out the flavour of the chocolate and doesn’t make the cake taste like coffee