A Break for Glorious Chocolate

Another posting that takes me away from my travelogue. This time for my friend Ruth's recipe for Flourless Chocolate Cake. Happily, she just emailed me instructions on how to make this Kosher for Passover, chocolate cloud delight - and said she'd be pleased if I shared it with my readers, note and all...

I promised my Flourless Chocolate Cake recipe, so here it is! (It's actually not mine, it comes from one of the silliest mysteries I ever read called The Cherry Cheesecake Murder by Joanne Fluke and is certainly the best thing about this ridiculous book.)

**This is really a type of chocolate souffle so it will fall in the center once you take it out of the oven. Don't panic; you invert it to serve it so it doesn't really matter.

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter (1 stick, 1/4 pound)
8 oz semi seet chocolate chips (1 1/4 cups - Ghirardelli's is best)
4 egg yoks (save the whites in a separate bowl for later)
1/2 cup white (granulated) sugar
1/2 teaspoon rum extract or vanilla (i used vanilla)
4 egg whites (the ones you saved)
1/4 cup white (granulated) sugar (you'll use 3/4 cup in all)

Sweetened whipped cream to decorate top (more later)
shaved chocolate or chocolate curls to decorate top (optional)
sliced whole berries to decorate top (optional)

Spray an 8-in springform pan with Pam. An 8-1/2 in springform will also work, but a 9-in is too big). Line the bottom of the pan with a circle of parchment paper (wax paper will also work). Spray the paper with Pam too.

In a small microwave-safe bowl, combine butter and semi-sweet chocolate chips. Melt for one minute on HIGH, stir, and heat for an additional 20 seconds if necessary. (Some chocoalte maintains its shape even when melted. Stir before you microwave for the addtiional time.) Cover your bowl, or put it back in the microwave to keep it warm

In a medium bowl, beat 1/2 cup of granulated sugar with the egg yolks until they're light yellow in color. Mix in the rum/vanilla. (This is easy with an electric mixer, although you can do it by hand.)

Stir a bit of the egg yolk mixture into the melted chocolate to temper it. Then add the chocolate to the egg yolk mixture and stir until it's well blended.

In a large bowl, using clean beaters, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Continue beating while sprinkling in the remaining 1/4 cup granulated sugar. Beat until stiff peaks form (about 1/2 minute).

Stir just a bit of the egg white mixture into the bowl with the chocolate. Now add the chocolate to the bowl with the rest of the egg whites and gently fold it in with a rubber spatula. Continue folding until the mixture is a uniform chocolate color.

Pour the batter into the cake pan and smooth the top with a rubber spatula. Bake at 375 degrees F. for 35 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out dry.

Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Run a knife around the inside of the rim of the pan, invert the pan on a serving plate, and cool for another 10 minutes. Release the catch on the springform pan and remove it. DON'T PEEL OFF THE PARCHMENT PAPER UNTIL THE CAKE IS COMPLETELY COOL TO THE TOUCH.

When you're ready to serve, you can fill the crater in the center and frost the top of the cake with sweetened whipped cream. If you want it to look fancy, decorate it with chocolate shavings, chocolate curls and/or a sprinkling of raspberries of strawberries.

Sweetened Whipped Cream

Whip two cups of heavy cream sweetened with 1/3 cup of powdered sugar.

ENJOY!