There are two fathers who feature prominently in my life: my own father, and S. and Lemon Baby’s daddy (also known as my husband). They are vastly different men in trait and temperament, but one (very important) thing they have in common is the ability to drop everything and play with their littles. And for that we thank you, and offer dads everywhere this easy flourless chocolate cake.
My own father demonstrated an ability to switch into play mode countless times while I was growing up, and still to this day, when his grandchildren want him to chase them on all fours, roaring like a fearsome beast, he complies without hesitation. My husband, when asked to tell his nephew, niece, and son a bedtime story, grabs our stuffed Mr. Bear Squash-You-All-Flat and enacts the storyline, complete with an inflatable tire float. (For those who don’t know who/what Mr. Bear is, it’s a ridiculous children’s story from back in the day about –you guessed it– a bear who squashes little woodland creatures’ homes).
The ability to play on demand is reason enough to make whomever you (or your kids) call “Dad” a special meal on the third Sunday in June. My husband is a meat and potatoes guy, so a nice steak with a chimichurri sauce and warm potato salad is all right with him. Add this easy flourless chocolate cake, and he’s in second heaven.
As I mentioned before, my husband is all about the chocolate. In fact, he has such a good nose for chocolate that he has raided my secret stash on more than one occasion (until I found better hiding places). This is his absolute favorite cake, hands down, and you cannot get any more deep-dark-chocolate-cake than this baby. As an added bonus, it’s gluten free, so celiacs the world over, rejoice! It also happens to be one of the simplest cakes to whip up, ever. One bowl. Yep, that’s right. One bowl. I got the idea for the One-Bowl Flourless Chocolate cake from Baker’s One-Bowl Brownies because I will always find a way to get out of a double-boiler situation. And frankly, if Baker’s One-Bowl Brownie recipe is good enough for Food52, then it’s certainly good enough for me.
Easy Flourless Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
- 4 ounces good bittersweet chocolate (70% and up cacao but not unsweetened)
- 1 stick (1/2 cuunsalted butter
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 3 large eggs at room temperature
- ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- ¼ cup powdered sugar optional
- stencil optional
Instructions
-
Preheat oven to 375°F and prepare an 8-inch round baking pan. Butter the pan and line the bottom with a round of wax paper. Butter paper bottom, as well.
-
Chop chocolate into small pieces.
-
Put chocolate and butter in a glass bowl or large-capacity measuring cup.
-
Microwave butter and chocolate together in 30 second intervals until melted, stirring after each interval.
-
Whisk sugar into chocolate mixture.
-
Add eggs and whisk well.
-
Sift 1/2 cup cocoa powder over chocolate mixture and whisk until just combined. Pour batter into pan and bake in middle of oven 25 minutes, or until top has formed a thin crust. Cool cake in pan on a rack 5 minutes and invert onto a serving plate.
-
Place desired stencil on cake and sift powdered sugar over cake. Serve.
Happy Father’s Day, from Mr. Bear Squash You All Flat, to you and yours. And if you’re wondering who ate half of the cake, it wasn’t me. Really. It was the two in my household with Y-chromosomes, of course.
Pin this image:
