Flourless Chocolate Cake with Profiteroles

Sometimes you want to have a piece of chocolate cake that doesn’t take much effort yet still delivers a much needed chocolate punch. This flourless chocolate cake from MarthaStewart really is the business.

I couldn’t decide what to make for the final of The Croc Bake Off and I wanted to make something that was both simple to make and impressive. After deciding that I wanted to make something topped with profiteroles I knew I wouldn’t have the time to make my Dr Pepper cake, especially as P and I new parents to a Dandie Dinmont puppy named Dougal. I knew that I’d want to come home from work and play with him rather than stand in the kitchen all night.

As usual, I spread my baking over a couple of evenings making the profiteroles first and storing them, unfilled, in an airtight container. The following night I made the flourless cake and then put the two together at the office the next morning. Fortunately Dougal is more interested in sleeping than much else at the moment so I had time to make the salted caramel sauce and chocolate sauce as well.

Ingredients:

85g unsalted butter cut into pieces

227g dark chocolate 70% as a minimum, chopped finely

6 large eggs separated

112g caster sugar

Icing sugar for dusting

Sweetened whipped double cream for serving

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 135C and prepare a 9in spring-form pan with butter or cake release spray.

1. Place the butter and chocolate into a microwave safe bowl and melt in 30-second intervals. Stir the mixture between each time until completely melted. Let this cool for around 5 minutes, or while you whip up the egg whites, and then stir in the egg yolks.

2. In a mixing bowl beat the egg whites with the whisk attachment until soft peaks form. Then gradually add the sugar a tablespoon at a time and continue to beat until the eggs are glossy and hold a stiff peak.

3. Using a large spatula, take a large spoonful of the egg whites and mix them into the chocolate mixture until combined. Then add in the rest of the egg whites and fold in gently in stages until combined.

4. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth out the top with the spatula. Bake until the cake pulls away from the sides of the pan 40 – 50 minutes. Place on a wire rack and let cool completely before removing from the pan.

You can either dust this with icing sugar and serve with the sweetened cream or pile profiteroles on the top and drizzle with salted caramel and chocolate sauce.

A Choice of Chocolate Toppings

As much as I love chocolate buttercream, I know it simply won’t do when you’re looking to elevate your baking to a higher level of sophistication. Picking your chocolate is very important since a sauce is all about the chocolate intensity and quality is definitely better than quantity in this particular situation. Personally I like to use Valrhona because it has a beautiful silky texture and it’s incredibly rich; however, you can use whichever chocolate you like best as long as it’s at least 70%.

I have two fail safe recipes that are perfect for toppings cakes, ice cream or pastries.

Chocolate Sauce

I stumbled upon this recipe on the Guardian website when I was looking for a chocolate sauce to pour over my profiteroles.  I especially like the fact that Felicity has done all of the hard work testing out different sauces and settling on one that is both easy to make and very tasty.

Ingredients:

150g plain chocolate, broken into small pieces

50ml whipping cream

2tbs golden syrup

Knob of butter

Pinch of salt

1. Put the chocolate and cream into a small, heavy-based pan over a low heat and stir constantly. It’s important that you don’t rush this and use a higher heat because you will burn the chocolate.
2. It’s ready once the chocolate has melted and combined with the cream to make a paste.
3. Stir in the syrup and you’ll notice the sauce begins to loosen and look like chocolate sauce. Stir in the butter and salt to make it glossy.

Keep warm until ready to serve or pour into a jar and heat gently in the microwave when you are ready to use it.

I love the Weck jars I found at Butlers and this recipe is enough to fill up one of the 290ml jars.

Chocolate Ganache

I’ve been using this ganache recipe for a long time and I can’t remember where it comes from, but I do know that it makes an excellent ganache topping. I’ve used it on cakes and cupcakes and even whipped it to make a super rich filling for a chocolate cake.

Ingredients:
250g plain chocolate, broken into small pieces

235ml double cream

1. Place the chocolate pieces into a heat proof bowl and set aside. Heat the cream in either the microwave or in a small pan over a medium heat until just before boiling point.
2. Remove from heat and pour over the chocolate pieces and whisk until smooth.

Set aside to let cool for around ten minutes and then pour over the top of your cake. You can whip the ganache to a fluffy consistency, perfect for spreading with a palate knife or a filling, by allowing it to cool completely and then mixing with the whisk attachment on your mixer.

Salted Caramel Sauce

Salted caramel is one of those taste sensations of salty and sweet that my American palate absolutely adores. I put it up there with the highlight of eating pancakes with syrup with the maple syrup oozes on the plate, covering the smoky, salted bacon.

A key feature of my Dr Pepper and salted caramel cake, I will find any excuse to pour this unctuous liquid over almost any treat. Most recently I've used it to pour over my cream filled profiteroles.

Making salted caramel can seem intimidating because it involves using a cooking thermometer but it really is simple and straightforward to make, although it does require close watching to ensure it doesn't burn. I use Martha Stewart's recipe and have converted into metric, which I prefer to use.

Ingredients:

800g caster sugar*

240g golden syrup

225g cold unsalted butter cut into pieces

470ml double cream

60ml water

1tsp salt

You can halve the recipe very easily depending on what you need it for.

Instructions:

1. Combine the sugar, golden syrup, and water in a medium sized heavy bottomed pan and set it over a medium/high heat. Cook without stirring until the mixture becomes a dark amber colour and all of the sugar crystals have melted. This will take around 15 minutes.

 

2. Remove from heat and slowly pour in the cream because it will splutter and splatter and it really burns if it splashes on you. Stir the cream and sugar mixture until smooth - it will be lumpy at first and then it will smooth out, and then return to the heat and insert a cooking thermometer and cook until it reaches 114C or 338F. This usually takes around 10 minutes over a medium/high heat. Take care with the heat since it could bubble over if you don't have a deep enough pan.

 

3. Once the caramel has reach 114C remove from the heat and stir and pour into a clean glass bowl stirring the salt through. I often use salted butter and omit the salt at this stage and it works just fine. Let it cool  in the bowl for 15 minutes.

4. Gradually add the pieces of butter and mix it in thoroughly before adding the next piece. Once you have added all of the pieces of butter you can leave the caramel to cool in the bowl or pour into a jar.

The caramel will last about a week in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Warm up slightly in the microwave so you can pour it over your favourite cakes, cookies, ice cream or just spoon it straight from the jar to your mouth.

*You can use regular sugar but it might take a little bit longer to melt since the crystals are larger.

Practise Make Profiteroles

They say ‘practise makes perfect’ but I prefer to say 'practise makes profiteroles'! I've only ever attempted making them once before and it was a total disaster.

I have The Croc Bake Off in a week’s time and I’m thinking about making a salted caramel chocolate cake topped with a pyramid of cream filled profiteroles – something that will be a real show stopper. Hopefully it will be a sight to behold and lift what is already a scrumptious chocolate cake into the winner’s circle.

The last time I attempted to make profiteroles I was still in university and living in the US. I had never attempted to make anything like them before and I had never seen anyone make them either – the unknown was how I made a mess of things. When I started adding in the eggs I panicked and threw it out deciding it was better to buy them than persevere.

Thanks to the benefit of watching countless cooking programmes where they’ve shown the stages of the horrible doughy mess that miraculously turns into stretchy and smooth dough I knew what I was getting myself in for with this. Also, I have a lot more baking under my belt than I did when I was in my early 20s.

Here’s the recipe from my Le Cordon Bleu Patisserie & Baking Foundations cookbook.

Ingredients list:

Profiteroles

125ml water

125ml full fat milk

125g unsalted butter

5g salt

12g sugar

150g flour

4-5 eggs

1 egg slightly beaten for egg wash

Whipped Cream

250ml whipping cream

50g icing sugar

Salted Caramel

Chocolate Ganache (link to follow)

1.     Mix the water, milk, butter, salt and sugar in a medium saucepan and cook over a medium heat until the butter melts. Remove from heat and add in all of the flour at once and stir through completely. Replace the saucepan on the medium heat and stir continuously until the batter comes away from the sides and forms a ball. For the Americans out there it looks like the world’s thickest starter for cream gravy – for the British, well I’m not sure how best to describe it)

2.     Once a ball has formed you need to transfer the batter into a clean bowl and let it cool for about 5-10 minutes. Once cooled add in one egg at a time and mix until if is fully incorporated. This is when it gets a bit funky. Don’t lose faith and toss the effort into the bin like I did all that time ago. The egg will actually mix in and go from a clumpy, eggy and slimy mess to a stretchy and sticky dough. Just make sure you add them one at a time because you may not need all of the eggs.

3.     Once the batter is nice and sticky you should prepare the pastry bag with a round tip and fill the bag full of the dough. I like to put my pastry bag into a pint glass and fold back the sides to make it easier to fill. Once full of the dough I shake it down to the piping tip and twist the top to keep it from coming out.

4.     Finally, pipe rounds onto a silicon mat and put into a preheated oven at 220°C (425°F) and immediately turn the oven down to 205°C (400°F). When the profiteroles start to colour turn them around and bake until golden. Place on a wire rack to cool. (Don't forget to tap down the nipples on the rounds before putting them into the oven - you can give them an egg wash at this point to make them shiny)

5.     While the profiteroles are cooling pour the cream and sugar together into a mixing bowl with the whisk attachment and whip until stiff peaks form.

6.     Put the cream into a piping bag fitted with a piping tube tip and fill the profiteroles from underneath. Make sure to add plenty of cream so the profiteroles don’t taste like semi-sweet Yorkshire puds.

7.     Once you have filled the profiteroles you can stack them in a pyramid stack and drizzle over with the salted caramel or the chocolate ganache.