Flourless Chocolate Cake

I've had this cake on my mind for a while now. I was going to make a recipe I received in the mail from a diabetes magazine ad, but the more I looked at it the more I wasn't too sure about it. You see, it used fake sugar and whenever I've tried to use fake sugar in a recipe I can tell. I don't like it.

The recipe I ended up using here uses less than a cup of real sugar (not counting the chocolate), so I felt comfortable with that. After all, I won't be eating the whole thing in one sitting. This recipe is from the Food Network and was courtesy of Florence Tyler. Click here for the printable version.

I didn't make it exactly as described in the recipe. I used chocolate I had on hand. Also something happened and I don't know why. The recipe says to bake for 20 - 25 minutes. I ended up baking mine for 65 minutes. I'm not sure what happened there, but the end result was still delicious. I'll show the recipe with my changes in parenthesis. If any real bakers out there are reading this and you have any ideas about why I had to go extra long, let me know...

The ingredients are: 1 pound bittersweet chocolate, chopped into small pieces (I used a 3.5 oz bar of dark chocolate and 1 1/4 bags of semi-sweet chocolate); 1 stick unsalted butter (I never buy unsalted butter so I used regular=1/4 pound); 9 large eggs; 3/4 C granulated sugar, plus 1 T; 2 C heavy cream, cold; confectioners sugar for dusting.

Separate the eggs.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9 inch springform pan.

Melt the chocolate and butter over a double boiler until melted.

Meanwhile, whisk the egg yolks and sugar until light yellow in color. You can see how it leaves a "ribbon" across the top when you pull the beater out.

Whisk a small amount of the chocolate mixture in with the egg mixture to temper the eggs.

Then mix in the rest of the chocolate mixture.

Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form (I may have slightly over done mine).

Fold the whites into the chocolate mixture.

Pour into the prepared pan and bake until the cake is set, the top starts to crack, and a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out with moist crumbs clinging to it, 20 - 25 minutes. (I started with 20 minutes, then added five. The cake top was still not set and the batter was still runny, so I added 10 minutes. I kept adding 10 minutes until finally the cake looked as described.)

Moist crumbs.

While the cake is in the oven be a good baker and clean up after yourself.

Let the cake sit out for 10 minutes, then carefully removed the outer ring. Dust with the powdered sugar.

Whip the cream until it becomes light and fluffy. Serve the cake at room temp with a dollop of whipped cream. (I just used canned whipped cream and added a few sliced almonds.)THE END