Brown Butter Flourless Chocolate Cake

One bowl, one pan: one amazing dense and rich dark chocolate cake. This baby was flourless before gluten free was cool. The brown butter and the deep berry notes of the unsweetened chocolate make this marvelously chocolately and not too sweet. Delicious on its own sprinkled with a bit of confectioners sugar or serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream. Berries? Yes, if only I had gotten to the farmers market just a few hours sooner.

I’ve been looking for an excuse to bake a chocolate cake. I know some of you are thinking ‘who needs an excuse?’ but when the only other person in your house has actual self-control when it comes to sweets it’s best for waistlines and resolutions to wait until there is an event where the cake can go and any leftovers do not come home with you. Shame because some dark chocolate would be amazing for breakfast right about now.

Despite the rather intimidating amount of steps listed below this cake is actually easy to make. Baking this flourless chocolate cake in a well seasoned cast iron pan ups the easy factor and gives the crust the perfect bite. I used this recipe  as my template and you could certainly use semi-sweet chocolate instead of unsweetened and cut down the sugar to 1 ½ cups. I just happened to have a bar of amazing Sharffen Berger unsweetened chocolate in the pantry that started this whole craving in the first place.

You can let this cool for a few hours or perhaps you might want to do like we did and serve it about an hour after baking when the interior is still just slightly warm and even more creamy smooth and buttery.

Brown Butter Flourless Chocolate Cake 

Ingredients

• 8 ounces unsweetened dark chocolate, roughly chopped
• 1/2 lb (two sticks) unsalted butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 6 large eggs
• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/8 tsp sea salt (you can either use fine sea salt and incorporate it into the batter when adding the butter or you  can use a flakey finishing salt like I did, the black stuff in the tin below, & sprinkle it over the batter just before baking– or omit it all together 😉
• 1 tsp vanilla

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Add butter to a 10-inch cast iron pan and cook over medium heat for 5 minutes or so, until it turns nut brown in color (not sure what I mean by nut brown? think nut brown ale, like this). Foam and bubbles are part of the browning process, but watch carefully so that you don’t burn the butter.
3. Begin to melt chocolate in a double boiler or a large metal bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water.
4. Pour the butter from the cast iron into the melting chocolate (don’t scrape the pan, just pour, leaving a healthy coating of butter) and set the cast iron aside. Stir together until mixture is smooth.
5. Remove bowl from heat and whisk in sugar.
6. Add eggs one at a time, whisking well after each addition.
7. Add vanilla
8. Sift cocoa powder into chocolate and whisk until just combined.
9. Pour batter into cast iron skillet.
10. Bake on the middle rack until a wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 35-40 minutes.
11. Cool cake in pan on a rack for 10 minutes.
12. Invert cake onto a plate and re-invert onto rack to cool completely.
13. Dust cake with cocoa powder or powdered sugar before serving.

Brown Butter Flourless Chocolate Cake

An easy gluten free chocolate dessert you can bake in your cast iron skillet

5 from 1 vote

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Prep Time 10 mins

Cook Time 35 mins

Total Time 45 mins

Course Dessert, Gluten free

Cuisine cast iron

Servings 1 ten inch cake

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x

• 8 ounces unsweetened dark chocolate roughly chopped
• 1/2 lb two sticks unsalted butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 6 large eggs
• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/8 tsp sea salt (you can either use fine sea salt and incorporate it into the batter when adding the butter or you  can use a flakey finishing salt like I did, the black stuff in the tin below, & sprinkle it over the batter just before baking-- or omit it all together
• 1 tsp vanilla

Instructions

 

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
• Add butter to a 10-inch cast iron pan and cook over medium heat for 5 minutes or so, until it turns nut brown in color. Foam and bubbles are part of the browning process, but watch carefully so that you don't burn the butter.
• Begin to melt chocolate in a double boiler or a large metal bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water.
• Pour the butter from the cast iron into the melting chocolate and set the cast iron aside. Stir together until mixture is smooth.
• Remove bowl from heat and whisk in sugar.
• Add eggs one at a time, whisking well after each addition.
• Add vanilla
• Sift cocoa powder into chocolate and whisk until just combined.
• Pour batter into cast iron skillet.
• Bake on the middle rack until a wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 35-40 minutes.
• Cool cake in pan on a rack for 10 minutes.
• Invert cake onto a plate and reinvert onto rack to cool completely.
• Dust cake with cocoa powder or powdered sugar before serving.

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