Flour-less Chocolate Cake

This week it was my turn to make a snack to bring to our Tuesday night Bible study. Though I've been fudging on the gluten-free eating recently, I still decided to make a flour-less and dairy-free treat. I got this recipe from my mom. She had told me it was a simple, easy to make cake. It is simple enough, I just got a little overwhelmed with some equipment difficulties and phone calls during the process. 

The ingredients are simple and few: 

7 oz really good semisweet chocolate (45-50% or higher cocoa)

3/4 cup of butter (I used Earth Balance - a dairy free butter)

1 cup of sugar, divided

4 eggs, separated

There are an assortment of dairy-free butter options to choose from. 

When I went to melt the butter and chocolate I ended up melting the bottom of my plastic mixing bowl... oops!

The process was quite messy... which was hard for me. There was little time for cleaning-as-you-go. 

I generally love using electric mixers. It's not quite as fun, however, when there isn't yummy batter goodness to lick off. This mixture was purely egg whites and sugar. 

Next I had to fold in the egg white/sugar mixture with the melted chocolate/butter/egg yolks, which created a marble-like effect. Pretty.

After everything was combined, I put the batter into a 9 inch cake pan and let it bake for 40 mins.

After baking I took the cake out and let it cool for 30 minutes before removing it from the pan.

It's pretty thin and flat. It is supposed to turn out this way. It almost looks like brownies. 

I dusted it with powdered sugar and called it a day!

These are the steps I followed if you are interested in giving it a go yourself:

1.  Preheat oven to 300°F.  Melt chocolate and butter in a double boiler (you can use the microwave on lower power).  Stir together half the sugar and four yolks; add to melted chocolate concoction.

2.  Using an electric mixer, beat the egg whites; slowly add remaining 1/2 cup sugar until stiff peaks form.  Fold mixture into chocolate.  Pour into a greased 9" cake pan.

3.  Bake 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out with just a few crumbs on it.  Cool 30 minutes before removing from pan.  Dust with powdered sugar.