Flourless chocolate espresso cake with berries

From Denny: A flourless chocolate cake is always awesome. How about kicking it up a notch by adding rich dark expresso to it? Then pile on some wonderful berries to finish. Skip the usual Christmas suspects of fruitcakes soaked in bourbon for the past year, go chocolate! :)

If you don't have time to fit this into your holiday plans, keep it in mind for New Year's or Valentine's! I know I will! Guess I have a lot of chocolate on my brain as I just finished making 84 cookies today for some of my husband's accounts who requested them - and by the time I'm finished it will be around 400. Nothing like last minute requests to slow down your posting! :)

Flourless Chocolate Espresso Cake with berries

From: Chef Jim Nuetzi, Capital Grill

INGREDIENTS

• 1 lb. Guittard semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
• 1 lb. Unsalted butter, diced
• 1 C. Freshly-brewed espresso
• 1 C. Golden brown sugar
• 8 Eggs, beaten to blend
• Bath of hot water
• Fresh raspberries For garnish

Raspberry sauce

• 1 1/2 lbs. Raspberries
• 1/4 lb. Sugar
• 1/2 tsp. Salt

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line bottom of a 9-inch diameter cake pan with 2 inch high sides with parchment. Place all chocolate in large bowl.

Bring butter, espresso and sugar to boil in medium saucepan, stirring to dissolve sugar.

Add chocolate; whisk until smooth and cool slightly.

Whip eggs till blended. Stir eggs into chocolate mixture until blended. Do not whip.

Pour batter into prepared pans. Place cake pan in roasting pan. Pour enough hot water into roasting pan to come halfway up sides of cake pan.

Bake until center of cake is set and tester inserted into center comes out with a few moist crumbs attached, about 45 minutes.

Remove pans from water and chill cake overnight.

Cut around pan sides to loosen cake. Using oven mitts, hold pan bottom over low heat for 15 seconds, warming slightly to release cake. Place platter over pan. Hold pan and platter together tightly and invert. Lift off cake pan, peel off parchment and dust top of each cake with cocoa powder.

Cut cake into ten slices and garnish with fresh raspberries and raspberry sauce.

Raspberry sauce:

In a medium mixing bowl, combine the raspberries, sugar and salt.

Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Combine all ingredients in a blender, puree, and pour through a strainer.


*** THANKS for visiting and have a great holiday!

Recipe: Flourless Chocolate Cake with Coffee Liqueur

Photo by Svadilfari @ flickr

Flourless Chocolate Cake with Coffee Liqueur

From Denny: OK, have any of you actually ever met a flourless chocolate cake you didn't like? Come on, now, we all LOVE this stuff - and shamelessly! :) This chef makes an awesome version AND it's lighter too. Take a look.


Flourless Chocolate Cake with Coffee Liqueur

From: Chef Ray Johnson of Café Mundo, San Jose, Costa Rica

Yield: 12 servings

Serve this with coffee ice cream or whipped cream, if desired. Beaten eggs make this cake lighter in texture than most other flourless chocolate cakes.


Ingredients:


1 pound semisweet chocolate, chopped

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter

¼ cup coffee liqueur

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

7 large eggs, room temperature

1 cup sugar

Powdered sugar


Directions: Preheat oven to 350° F. Butter 9-inch diameter springform pan with 2 3/4 –inch-high sides. Line bottom of pan with parchment paper. Stir chocolate, butter, coffee liqueur and vanilla in heavy large saucepan over low heat until melted and smooth. Cool to lukewarm.

Using electric mixer, beat eggs and 1 cup sugar in large bowl until thick and pale, and slowly dissolving ribbon forms when beaters are lifted, about 6 minutes. Fold 1/3 of egg mixture into lukewarm chocolate mixture. Fold remaining egg mixture into chocolate mixture.

Place prepared pan on baking sheet. Transfer batter to prepared pan. Bake until tester inserted into center comes out with moist crumbs attached, about 55 minutes. Cool 5 minutes. Gently press down edges of cake. Cool completely in pan. (Cake can be prepared up to 1 day ahead. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate. Let stand at room temperature 1 hour before continuing.)

Run knife around pan sides to loosen cake. Remove sides of pan; transfer cake to platter. Remove parchment paper. Sprinkle cake with powdered sugar and serve.

Recipe: Nigella Lawson Flourless Chocolate Orange Cake

Nigella Lawson Flourless Chocolate Orange Cake Recipe #303266
From the chocolate cake chapter in her book 'Feast'. This is one of the best chocolate cakes I have ever made. I sometimes add the juice and zest of half a lemon to the batter.
by Flowerfairy
3¼ hours | 2½ hours prep

SERVES 12 , 1 cake

2 small thin-skinned oranges, approx. 375g total weight (or 1 large)

6 eggs

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

200 g ground almonds

250 g caster sugar

50 g cocoa

orange peel, for decoration

Put the whole orange or oranges in a pan with some cold water, bring to the boil and cook for 2 hours or until soft.

Drain, and when cool, cut the oranges in half and remove any big pips.

Then pulp everything - pith, peel and all - in a food processor.

Preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180°C Butter and line a 20cm springform tin.

Add the eggs, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, almonds, sugar and cocoa to the orange in the food processor. Run the motor until you have a cohesive cake mixture, but slightly knobbly with the flecks of puréed orange.

Pour and scrape into the cake tin and bake for an hour, by which time a cake tester should come out pretty well clean. Check after 45minutes because you may have to cover with foil to prevent the cake burning before it is cooked through, or indeed it may need a little less than an hour; it all depends on your oven.

Leave the cake to get cool in the tin, on a cooling rack. When the cake is cold you can take it out of the tin. Decorate with strips of orange peel or coarsely grated zest if you so wish, but it is darkly beautiful in its plain, unadorned state.

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