Friday, March 5, 2010

Flourless Chocolate Cake by Madhuri Kumar

1, 2, 3 ..... Drr..ooo..lllll!!!

 Yes, I got the much awaited guest post from Madhuri today! Her extremely chocolicious looking Flourless Chocolate Cake. Thank you so much Madhuri!!! This is going to be one of the most delicious posts on my blog apart from being the BEST ever picture on the blog!! Boy!! Did she make an impact and such a yummm..my one at that! Am so glad I asked her to guest-post for me and these awesome professional looking pictures are on my blog. Do check out her blog for more such awesome clicks!  Psstt ..am thinking, if she asks me to guest post for her, will call her home on the pretext of tasting the recipe and get some fab pictures of my dish taken!! Isn't that a great idea!

And it goes without saying, am seriously floored by the Flourless Chocolate Cake:-)) Now, over to Madhuri...

Flourless Chocolate Cake

Every baker needs a good Flourless Chocolate Cake recipe in the repertoire, and I found this delicious sounding dessert just in time for my guest post on Suma's Blog. Thanks Suma, for giving me an opportunity to be the first guest post-er on your lovely blog! I really hope we get to meet soon enough for me to pass on your share, before it gets gobbled up at home :)

Flour is one of the ingredients so imperative to cakes and baking at large, so creating a divine dessert without flour did seem a little daunting at first. Everyone says they're easy to make and all that, but I din't know that yet. I was so so so skeptical to try it though it had captured my interest, first, because it dint have any flour, and second, no make it another first, because it was swooningly chocolate! But then, what kind of cake doesn't have flour in it? Ok, I really had to (wo)man up to this challenge because I had to make Suma something other than your regular cake, something more captivating, for both, her and her blog readers. As I put the cake in the oven, I whispered a little prayer! Aaah, and when I finally dug into a small sample piece from the corner of the cake-pan, I wasn't disappointed at all...it tasted like a bite of heaven! You won't even notice the flour is missing (when do you really notice the flour in a cake anyway?) when this cake is topped with some creamy chocolate frosting or just dusted with some icing sugar and garnished with a couple strawberries. In short, this dense, fudgy, decadent cake is just too divine to put into words!

Ingredients:

    * Bitter-sweet dark chocolate compound - 500 gms; I used the 'Morde' brand (I prefer cup measurements, however, since it is pretty direct to use the store bought half kilo packet, im going with this)
    * Butter - 1/2 cup + 2 tbsps
    * Eggs - 5 nos, at room temperature (preferably large-sized)

That's all...just 3 simple ingredients! The rest depends on how you interpret them. The recipe comes together very easily with a hand-mixer. I give full credit to mine.


Procedure:

    * Cut the dark chocolate into small pieces and microwave with the butter for 1-2 minutes till the mixture melts into a molten liquid. Remove once in between and give it a nice stir. The pieces on top may look intact, but don't let that fool you...the insides will be all molten. The time it takes to met completely, depends on the microwave. It took exactly 1.5 minutes in mine. You could also melt the chocolate-butter mixture on a double boiler, stirring often. For the detailed procedure check here.
    * Pre-heat the oven to 190C/375F. Grease and dust your cake pan/tin/dish.
    * Now, while your chocolate-butter mixture is cooling, separate the egg whites from the yolks and put them into two separate medium sized bowls (I used the bowl that came with my hand mixer itself).
    * Whip the egg whites in a medium/large grease free bowl until stiff peaks are formed and set aside (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry).
    * With the same beater beat the egg yolks together and set aside.
    * Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate. Stir well.
    * Next, fold in 1/3rd of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining 2/3rds. Fold until no white remains, without deflating the batter.
    * Pour the readied batter into prepared pan (the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full), and bake for 27 minutes. The top of the cake will look similar to a brownie when done.
    * Cool cake on a wire-rack for 10 minutes and then unmold. Serve with your favorite ice cream/frosting or just dust with some icing sugar, drop a couple strawberries on top, and dig in! I promise you won't be disappointed!


That was divine Madhuri!! Now I am off to her place to taste some of the decadent cake, while you all just droo..ol at the pics!!