Flourless Chocolate and Hazelnut Cake

This post is sponsored by Frangelico; although they provided the supplies for this post, all thoughts, opinions, and comments are my own — I’m not officially affiliated with the brand. You can check out Frangelico’s website or Facebook page to learn more about the hazelnut liqueur. It’s been a beautiful summer here in Portland, OR. The […]

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It’s been a beautiful summer here in Portland, OR. The weather has been warm and beautiful, and the state’s summer fruit and vegetable bounty has been plentiful. I’ve spent the last two months posting recipes that take advantage of the harvest: fruit marshmallows, cakes, pies, tarts, ice creams, sorbets and more.

But sometimes, just sometimes, I really want some chocolate.

Is that a surprise to anybody? I think one of my favorite things in the world is chocolate. A quick skim of my blog’s recipe index and the posts that I’ve tagged “chocolate” reveals that I have almost 40 recipes that use chocolate. That’s a crazy number, but one that I’m unapologetic for — because that’s right folks, my name is Michelle and I am a chocoholic.

Which is why I’m excited to write that, for this post, I’ve partnered with Frangelico Hazelnut Liqueur to bring you guys this awesome, flourless chocolate hazelnut cake:

When Frangelico reached out to me and asked me to develop a recipe for them, I was beyond excited. I’ve always been a big fan of baking with booze, and the combination of chocolate and hazelnut is one of my all-time favorites. I’ve used Frangelico in other recipes in my blog before (anybody remember this awesome chocolate hazelnut crepe cake that I made for my mom’s birthday a few years ago?), to great success. Sure enough, right off the bat, my mind went crazy with ideas —with a bottle of Frangelico, I could infuse all my favorite chocolate recipes with a shot of hazelnut! Cheesecake, cream puffs, mousse… the possibilities were endless.

For this post, however, I decided to go with this flourless chocolate and hazelnut cake:

A few weeks ago, one of my close friends was diagnosed with celiac disease, or, a severe gluten-allergy. Her doctor told her to cut out all gluten from her diet — something that nearly broke her heart, because she thrived off breads and pastas. The breads and pastas, she admitted to me, were the easy things to give up. There were plenty of other savory, delicious substitutes like meats and vegetables that made those carbs easy to miss. However, it was the sweets — the cakes, cupcakes and donuts — that she missed the most. Most gluten-free desserts were too “hippieish” and “crunchy-tasting” for her taste; almond and coconut flour could never hold a candle to the real thing. Four and a half weeks into her gluten-free diet, she was still jonesing for a slice of good ol’ fashioned cake every weekend, enviously eyeing my dessert plate every time we went out to dinner. It seemed like her craving wasn’t going away any time soon.

So imagine the look on her face when I showed up with this cake at her doorstep. The look of delight on her face was immeasurable: “That’s gluten-free? REALLY?! You mean, I can eat that without feeling terrible?” My listing of ingredients (“Chocolate, butter, eggs, sugar, Frangelico and nothing else, I promise”) confirmed it. Together, we tucked into a slice: dense, crumbly, and chocolatey, it was like eating an edge brownie piece. And when topped off with creamy chocolate hazelnut whipped cream? Delicious. My friend declared that it was the closest thing to real cake that she’d had ever since she went gluten-free. With that statement, I gave my friend the rest of the cake. She texted me a day later that she’d finished the whole thing in a day — with no regrets.

A few baker’s notes:

- It’s important to use a springform pan for this recipe — otherwise, good luck getting the cake out of the pan.

- The cool thing about this recipe is that it can taste completely different, depending on how you bake it. If you want something like you see in the pictures (a crumbly, dense, brownie-like textured cake — almost like eating a chocolate truffle), go ahead and follow my recipe instructions exactly as written. HOWEVER, if you want a creamier cake that has a texture more akin to a cheesecake, there’s one extra step you need to do. Instead of just sticking the springform pan in the oven, carefully wrap the bottom of the springform pan with aluminum foil before sticking in in another, larger baker tin filled with warm water. The warm water should go up at least 2/3rds of the sides of the springform pan. This is called a bain-marie, and it will give your cake a creamier, almost cheesecake-like texture.

- In order to make this cake work and rise up, you need to cream the eggs and sugar for a good 10 minutes on high-speed until it’s doubled in volume and is almost white in color. I know that it seems excessive to whip cream and sugar for 10 minutes, but it’s essential for this cake.

- It’s also super important that the eggs are at room temperature when you start whipping them, or again, the cake won’t rise up properly.

- Don’t worry if your cake cracks as it cools; most flourless cakes do that — it’s part of their charm. You can check out my cracked cake top here. If the cracks bother you, simply cover it up with the chocolate hazelnut whipped cream!

This cake is best served luke-warm, about an hour after it’s been taken out of the oven.