Spicy flourless chocolate cake

What Jerel’s cooking this week!

Hot off the Valentine’s Day presses, here’s a recipe that is Jerel-tested and Kendrin-approved. I hope everyone had a lovely Valentine’s Day, and if it was lame for whatever reason (poor planning, no planning, filler flowers, etc), perhaps this cake can make up for any missteps from yesterday. Chocolate can make everything better.

Spicy Flourless Chocolate Cake
Serves: 8 (it’s that rich!)
Source: I modified Emeril’s recipe (which looked a bit too tame)

Ingredients
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2-3 Tablespoons cayenne pepper (be brave!). If you want to go Emeril-style, use ancho chili powder instead and omit the cinnamon and nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 to 1 tsp sea salt
8 ounces dark chocolate, chopped (I used 72% Cacao chocolate, and even grated in some 100% cacao from tablets my parents gave me for Christmas)
2 sticks unsalted butter, plus a small pad for the pan
1 cup of sugar (I used evaporated cane juice from TJ’s)
6 eggs, separated

Directions
1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Butter a 9-inch springform pan. Line bottom and sides with parchment paper and butter those, too. Can also dust some cocoa on the paper.

3. Sift or whisk together the cocoa, cayenne, cinnamon, and nutmeg

4. Over a double-boiler melt the chopped chocolate (+/- the extra cacao) and the butter

5. Whisk the cocoa powder mix into the molten chocolate. Add at least 1/2 tsp of salt.

6. In a separate bowl, whisk together egg yolks and 1/2 cup sugar until it’s a pretty pale yellow.

7. Carefully whisk the molten chocolate into the egg yolks. Add more salt to taste (I’m a fan of sea salt + dark chocolate, so I added an additional 1/2 tsp). You can also adjust the cayenne here to your taste (so you might want to start with just 2 tbs, then increase it up to 3 if you want it spicier). This mix should taste sweet at the start, then have a hot aftertaste.

8. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks. Whisk in about 1/4 cup of sugar. Beat the whites. Add the rest of the sugar and beat until it forms a soft meringue.

9. Carefully fold the chocolate mixture into the meringue. Don’t lose any of the volume!

10. Transfer batter to pan and bake for about 45 minutes. Check the cake at 40 (that’s when mine was ready). The sides should be set but the middle should still be MOIST. A few crumbs will still stick to the cake tester.

11. Cool on a wire rack before removing from the pan. You can dust this with some more cinnamon and/or powder sugar, or even some whipped cream.