Friday, October 1, 2010

Flourless Chocolate Cake with Salted Caramel


     Yesterday's post was about my sister's birthday celebration on Sunday. I mentioned that we came back to my house for dessert after dinner. I posted the Caramel Apple Strata recipe earlier this week. Our second dessert was a wonderful flourless chocolate cake with a salted caramel sauce. I was so busy cooking that I forgot to take pictures as I made this recipe, luckily I did remember to take them as I served it.

     This recipe is a little more complicated than most of my recipes. It is worth the extra effort. The caramel sauce is truly the best I've ever made and would be wonderful to make for a delicious ice cream topping or to use for other desserts.

Flourless Chocolate Cake with Salted Caramel

Ingredients:

Cake
6 oz. bittersweet chocolate broken into pieces (I used Ghirardelli)
12 T. unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 T. cornstarch
pinch of salt
5 whole eggs-separated
3/4 cup sugar-separated into 2 equal portions
powdered sugar to decorate

Caramel Sauce
1 cup sugar
1 cup heavy cream
2 T. unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1/4 tsp. sea salt or fleur de sel


     Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Spray 8 inch square pan with Pam, then line the bottom with parchment paper. Over a double boiler (I don't have one, I put a metal bowl over a pan of boiling water) melt the chopped chocolate and the 12 T. of butter. Once melted, whisk in the cornstarch and salt, set aside in a warm spot.

     In mixing bowl, whisk the egg yolks with half of the sugar. It is best to do this over the double boiler to melt the sugar as you whisk. (I set my mixing bowl over the boiling water that I used for melting the chocolate). After they are whisked together, use a mixer to whip the egg yolk mixture until pale yellow (4 to 5 minutes). Fold the egg yolk mixture into the chocolate mixture with a spatula.

     In a clean bowl whip egg whites at medium speed until the whites have doubled or tripled in size. Add the remaining half of the sugar slowly while still beating. Turn the mixer to high and whip until soft and shiny (1-2 minutes). Whisk half of the egg white mixture into the chocolate mixture, then gently fold the remaining half into the mixture with a spatula.

     Pour into prepared pan and bake at 325 degrees for 40 minutes (until soft but still springy).

     Cool on rack for 2 to 3 hours. Turn out onto serving plate and remove parchment. Cut into small servings and dust with powdered sugar before serving. To serve, pour a little of the caramel sauce onto a plate, add a slice of the cake, a small dip of vanilla or coffee ice cream and a tiny pinch of sea salt into the caramel sauce.

To Make the Caramel Sauce

     Heat the heavy cream in a small sauce pan until warm and set aside. Do not boil.

     In a separate heavy bottomed sauce pan add a little of the sugar and melt over medium heat. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon or heat resistant spatula. After the first of the sugar is melted, add a little more and keep stirring until it melts. Do this in small amounts until all the sugar is melted (it will be turning a caramel color). After all the sugar is melted, cook it for 1 minute more until it gets a little bubbly around the edges. Remove from heat.

     Slowly (I was too fast on this step) stir in the hot heavy cream a little bit at a time. The sugar with react to the cream, so keep stirring and be careful this is a very hot mixture. Continue to add the cream until it is fully incorporated. Whisk in the butter and the sea salt. Pour into heat resistant container and cool at room temperature. Once cooled store in the refrigerator.

     When I made the caramel sauce my cream wasn't warm enough and I poured it in too quickly. It created a few "sugar lumps" that I had to melt back over the heat. I actually strained my sauce to make sure that there were no "tooth breaking" sugar pieces left in it.



I am joining Michael @ Designs by Gollum for Foodie Friday.
It is the place to go for the best recipes on in all of Blogland.

14 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh, my, does that look wonderful. Happy Birthday to your sister :)

Blessings!
Gail

Blondie's Journal said...

The cake looks delicious! I have been looking for a flourless chocolate cake and this is perfect. Thanks, Sue!

XO,
Janie

The Quintessential Magpie said...

Ooh, that sounds yummy, Sue! I know your sister enjoyed it. Please extend Happy Birthday wishes to her from me. :-)

Thanks so much for your prayers and well wishes when Mr. Magpie was going through his surgery and recup. I'm happy to report he's on the mend and that I am free of nursing duties. I hope to be blogging again in a week or so after I am free of my maid duties. I started thinking with all of the stuff I carted in here that I was going to have to call 1-800-Junk! LOL!

Sending you warm hugs...

XO,

Sheila :-)

xinex said...

OMG!~ This looks so good, Sue....Christine

La said...

This looks delicious! This is low calorie/fat/sugar/salt, right? :o) Looks like a little piece of heaven. La

bj said...

Wow...this looks delicious. I love anything with warm caramel sauce...yum..thanks for this great recipe.

koralee said...

Amazing...salted caramel sounds yummy! I think this will be my Sunday dessert!

Thanks for sharing. Happy weekend.

Miz Helen said...

Your Salted Caramel sauce looks amazing.
Thank you for sharing.

dee dee said...

After seeing photos of the party food and this post on the dessert, I'm sold... next year I'm flying you out for my birthday! What a blessed sister you have!
Dee dee

Jenny said...

Sue, OMG! And I can eat this! Well, not very much of it...but there's not flour in here. OK, I'm excited, excited. I'm going to have to find someone to invite over to dinner. This looks totally and absolutely amazing. Good thing I don't live closer. I would have snuck into the kitchen and you would have returned to see a great big piece missing from the cake!

Anonymous said...

Sounds delish and look delish too!

J Rodney said...

A flourless chocolate cake...very interesting, and the caramel sauce sounds and looks fantastic!

Patty Benedict said...

Yummy!!!! The older I get the more I want sweets!!!! LOVE your new candy corn background!
Have a fun October day!
HUGS!! Patty

Monica H said...

oh yum! That caramel sounds heavenly. You are such a great sister.