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.

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