Name: Flourless Chocolate-Chili Cake
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 1 h
Yield: 8
Ingredients: 3/4 C plus 1 tbsp (190g) unsalted butter; 2 C (190 g) 70% dark chocolate; 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (or less to taste); Scant 1/3 C (75 ml) espresso or strong coffee, cooled; 1/2 tsp vanilla extract; 3 eggs; 2/3 C (135 g) sugar; 1/2 tsp flaky sea salt; 2 tbsp (10 g) cocoa powder or powdered sugar, to dust

One of this month’s Cake Slice Bakers cake selection is the Flourless Chocolate-Chili Cake from Benjamina Ebuehi’s The New Way to Cake. Apparently everyone else in the baking world has made a flourless cake except for me, and this was finally my opportunity.

The instructions are very clear. You’ll want to brew the coffee and chop the chocolate before you get started so the recipe will go more smoothly. An admission – I had a combination of 1 cup of 60% bittersweet chocolate and 1 cup of 100% chocolate instead of all 70%. It ended up with a little bitter edge to it, but not in a bad way.

It’s a gooey, luscious, spicy chocolate cake, but next time I’ll make it with 1 cup of 70% chocolate and 1 cup of regular chocolate chips. It’ll be a smoother chocolate flavor with that combination.

Be sure and take the Flourless Chocolate-Chili Cake out of the oven when the edges are set and there’s still a slight wobble in the middle. That way you’ll get that wonderful flourless chocolate cake texture. Remember, it’s not a volcano cake. Chocolate won’t come oozing out of the middle, but it is definitely gooey and ultra moist.

Just a note – the original recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper. That’s a LOT of cayenne pepper, so I only used 1/2 teaspoon. I like spicy and even 1/2 a teaspoon is quite spicy for us. Use your discretion, but I recommend 1/4 or even 1/8 teaspoon if you’re sensitive to hot and spicy!

Having a glass of cold milk with the cake is a really good idea. But we had the second slice with a dollop of homemade vanilla ice cream. That took it over the top and I highly recommend it!

Check out the other Cake Slice Bakers’s cake selections below and visit their sites to see their beautiful creations!

Flourless Chocolate-Chili Cake

Yield: 8 -10 slices

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 40 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Gooey chocolate flourless cake with a hint of spiciness. Serve with a big dollop of whipped cream.

Ingredients

3/4 C plus 1 tbsp (190g) unsalted butter
2 C (190 g) 70% dark chocolate
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (or less to taste)
Scant 1/3 C (75 ml) espresso or strong coffee, cooled
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs
2/3 C (135 g) sugar
1/2 tsp flaky sea salt
2 tbsp (10 g) cocoa powder or powdered sugar, to dust

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350°. Grease a 9" cake pan and line with parchment paper.
Melt the butter, chocolate, and cayenne pepper in a small saucepan. Once the chocolate has melted, remove from the heat and stir in the coffee and vanilla, combining well. Set it aside and let it cool for at least 15 minutes.
In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar for 3 to 5 minutes, or until thick, pale and fluffy. Pour the cooled chocolate mixture into the eggs. Add the salt and fold gently until chocolate is completely incorporated without deflating eggs.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake 35 to 40 minutes (checking at 35 minutes) until the cake is just baked and slightly wobbly in the middle.
Remove from the oven and allow the cake to cool completely in the pan. Run a sharp knife around the edges of the cake, then turn out onto a rack. Make sure it's cooled completely and dust with either cocoa or powdered sugar (or a combination of the two).

Notes

Tips and Stuff:

I used salted butter and omitted the 1/2 teaspoon of flaky salt.

The original recipe has 1 full teaspoon of cayenne, but we found that even 1/2 teaspoon gave it quite a kick. Use at your own discretion!

The original called for an 8-inch pan, but there was too much batter for that. If you use a high-sided 8-inch pan instead of a 9-inch cake pan, be sure and add a few minutes cooking time.

The cake will fall and crack after it's taken out of the oven. It's supposed to do that to get that flourless chocolate cake look.

I think this would be at it's best served with a side of vanilla ice cream or sweetened fresh whipped cream.

Nutrition Information:

Yield: 8 Serving Size: 1 slice
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 138Total Fat: 5gSaturated Fat: 3gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 2gCholesterol: 74mgSodium: 186mgCarbohydrates: 20gFiber: 1gSugar: 18gProtein: 3g

Nutrition Values are Approximate

Each month The Cake Slice Bakers are offered a selection of cakes from the current book we are baking through. This year it is The New Way To Cake by Benjamina Ebuehi. We each choose one cake to bake, and then on the 20th – never before – we all post about our cake on our blogs. There are a few rules that we follow, but the most important ones are to have fun and enjoy baking & eating cakes!

Follow our Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest pages where you can find all of our cakes, as well as inspiration for many other cakes. You can also click on the thumbnail pictures below to take you to each of our cakes. If you have a blog and are interested in joining The Cake Slice Bakers and baking along with us, please send an email to thecakeslicebakers at gmail dot com for more details.

The Cake Slice Bakers also have a new Facebook group called The Cake Slice Bakers and Friends. This group is perfect for those who do not have a blog but want to join in the fun and bake through this book.

It is a new year and a new book – The New Way To Cake – and our choices for February 2020 are ~

Hidden Pear Cake

Cardamom Cake with Mulled Wine Jam

Flourless Chocolate-Chili Cake

Let’s talk about persimmons! When I was a kid, we grew all kinds of things in our backyard – figs, kumquats, and persimmons to name a few. In Houston, with that humidity and weather almost anything will grow.

The most common kinds of persimmons in the U.S. are the Fuyu and Hachiya. The Fuyu are flat, pretty much shaped like tomatoes and are sweet when just ripened. The Hachiya is bigger, more acorn-shaped, and is very astringent and bitter until it’s so ripe that it’s mushy. The texture is almost like pureed pumpkin pulp and can be interchanged with pumpkin in most recipes. I had a few of each type, so decided to make persimmon cookies from a recipe my sister had gotten from a neighbor.

Wait, I said persimmon cookies. Well, the dough is incredibly sticky and there is no way to make successful cookies. I added some baking powder and it ended up as an awesome two-layer Persimmon Spice Cake instead!

This Persimmon Spice Cake is perfect with cream cheese frosting and it’s very reminiscent of a carrot cake. It’s a dense, spicy cake and you can add almost anything to it – raisins would be great, or even pecans. (I put pecans on as a decoration, but there aren’t any in the cake. I’m not Martha Stewart creative when it comes to decorating a cake).

We love this cake and will make it again when I can get good persimmons. It goes wonderfully with coffee or by itself. It may have been an accidental recipe, but it’s now a new family favorite!

If you’ve never cooked or baked with persimmons, I urge you to do so. You can find them almost anywhere now.

The best bet for good ones will be Central Market or somewhere like Whole Foods. If you’re lucky, maybe they’ll have them at your local Farmer’s Market!