Mini Flourless Chocolate Cakes

Every year, I have a big plan for Passover to take advantage of the limited diet for the week and be healthy. Straight lean-meat-and-vegetables for me.

But then like a minute later, I am finding different ways to combine butter, sugar, eggs, and chocolate. Oh and, unrelated, cheese.

Chocolate flourless cake has always been intriguing and confusing to me. How can something be so delicious without flour? How does it stick together? Am I just eating chocolate held together by sugar and butter? Is there anything wrong with that, or should I just shut up and enjoy this cake?

Well I don’t know the science of it (I assume that, like with much of baking, it has to do with eggs), but I won’t argue with it.

What I will take issue with is the size of a standard chocolate flourless cake; it is so rich that even if you have company over, it takes a lot of people to finish a full cake. Everyone only wants a small slice, leaving lots of {delicious, sweet, heavy} leftovers. And it’s kind of messy to eat. So unless I am leaving the house with the cake and know that no part of it will return, I am hesitant to make full cakes. Even then, cake is not that easy to transport effortlessly.

Enter: the Mini.

These Mini Chocolate Flourless Cakes are easy to make. If you have a microwavable large mixing bowl, you are already on your way to a one-bowl, under-30-minute DELICIOUS treat. “Disgustingly delicious,” in the words of a senior manager in my office, during the meeting I brought them to, eliciting laughs and totally busting me checking my email.

Mini-everythings are fun and delicious. People will probably think these are brownies, and call them as such, but they are richer and smoother than brownies. And “Chocolate Flourless Cake” just sounds more impressive, to me.  Not that I have any objection to brownies.

Mini Flourless Chocolate Cakes

 

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Prep time

7 mins

Cook time

10 mins

Total time

17 mins

 

All the rich chocolately flavor of flourless chocolate cake in a bite-size bundle. YUM.

Author: myutensilcrock.com

Recipe type: Dessert, Holiday

Serves: 24 minis

Ingredients

• 4 oz. bittersweet chocolate (I used Ghirardelli)
• 1 stick unsalted butter
• ⅔ c sugar
• 2 t vanilla
• 1.5 t instant coffee
• 3 eggs
• ½ c unsweetened cocoa powder (measured into a sifter, ready to sift)

Instructions

1. Heat the oven to 375, and lightly spray mini-muffin tins with cooking oil (the recipe should make about 24).
2. In a large, microwave-safe bowl, crack the bittersweet chocolate into chunks, and add the stick of butter.
3. Microwave for 30 seconds and stir, repeating until the mixture is smooth, in shorter increments as it smooths out. Stirring the hot mixture will melt chunks, so take your time stirring and don't over-microwave it.
4. Whisk in the sugar, vanilla, and coffee.
5. Whisk in the eggs until smooth and incorporated.
6. Finally, sift in the cocoa, and whisk until smooth.
7. Divide the batter into the muffin tins, using a small cookie scoop.
8. Bake until the cakes rise and are slightly firm to the touch. This should be between 8 and 12 minutes. They may fall back in when you are done baking - no worries! That's what flourless chocolate cakes do.
9. Cool for a few minutes in the pan and then invert the pan and tap the bottom to empty it. Finish cooling the minis on a wire rack.

Notes

The recipe formatting here won't allow for a range of minutes so I selected 10. Check it at 8, but it will probably need a few more minutes!

3.2.2925

I had this recipe saved on a torn-out magazine page, and there is no reference to the name of the magazine anywhere on the page. Luckily, The Google helped out by leading me to this blog post. I was then able to find the source.