How to Make a Flourless Chocolate Torte

This recipe is for the real-deal choco-holics. It’s not messing around, y’all. Made from a relatively small and humble list of baking standards, this one is a classic. She’s beautiful, no? There’s nothing like setting this down on a table, after a meal has been enjoyed and swept away, and cracking through that papery thin crinkle top. It’s such a good Flourless Chocolate Torte recipe, y’all. Not too sweet. Big, bold chocolate flavors. A pretty standard-op set of step-by-step directions.

Read on to learn a little more about this flourless chocolate cake. Or, you can go right on ahead and jump to the recipe. Be sure to check out the rest of our My Kitchen Little baking recipes right over here.

The Ultimate Flourless Chocolate Torte

This dessert is truly not for the faint of heart. It is intensely chocolatey and will make itself known with little to no pomp and circumstance. No frosting is needed, which definitely separates it from my Texas Chocolate Cake. No glazes or caramel drizzles (as in my autumnally perfect Apple Slump with Vanilla Cayenne Caramel) or ganache-ing (like in my Bourbon Pumpkin Pie with Whipped White Chocolate Ganache)or showers of sugar are required to make this cake a star. It manages quite well all on its own. That said, I do quite enjoy a dollop of sweetened whipped cream with my slice of Flourless Chocolate Fudge Torte (flourless chocolate fudge cake).

There may be no better contender for the title of most congenial “gets along with everyone” dessert than the flourless chocolate torte. Unless, of course, you’re dealing with folks who don’t care for chocolate. Then yeah, all bets are off. But if your table is filled with chocolate lovers – or even chocolate likers at best – this recipe will become your best friend … your ride-or-die, back-pocket trusty sidekick. It has for me.

Kitchen Little Essentials

Don’t let the whole process of the thing intimidate you. The point of my sharing this today is to assure you of the ease in which you can create a fabulous flourless chocolate cake/torte. All it takes are some well-whipped egg whites, two kinds of chocolate (bar + cocoa powder), an understanding of what “folding” is, and a nice spring-form pan in which to house the thing as it bakes away in the oven.

For this recipe, you will need:

A 9-inch springform pan

Either a handheld mixer or a stand mixer

A good rubber spatula

Let’s get to it now … 

But First, What is the Difference Between a Cake and a Torte?

To keep it short and sweet for you, tortes have a very endearing, flexible definition. They’re not exclusive to one strict definition, but rather, more of a range of things that qualify or fall under the torte umbrella. To give you the most well-rounded idea:

Tortes are often rich cakes, made with very little or no flour but instead with ground nuts or breadcrumbs, eggs, sugar, and flavorings. Tortes are often multi-layered and contain buttercream fillings, jams, mousse, etc. but they don’t have to.

“Sometimes, they are made with less (or no) chemical leaveners (baking soda or baking powder) [than other cakes]—often using physical leavening through whipped eggs, egg yolks, [or] egg whites as the only leavening agent.” – Food Lover’s Companion

So, I call this particular dessert a “torte” because it is a rich, intense chocolate dessert that has zero flour in it, and gets its leavening from egg whites. That, to me, takes it outside the purview of what I usually think of as “cake” and nudges it into a space more befitting of a different, more distinctive label. Does that make sense? I have a single-layer chocolate cake recipe on this blog, and this fudgy flourless number is really nothing like that. It deserves a different name, and it’s really just as simple as that.

How to Choose Your Chocolate (does brand matter?)

Okay, so many a guide to chocolate cakes and their ingredients will instruct you to purchase the best quality chocolate in order for your cake to be great – for it to turn out right. While I am by no means knocking the choice to buy great quality ingredients, I have found that with this torte, using regular store-brand Dutch process cocoa powder and good ole’ Baker’s semi-sweet chocolate bars results in a product that is indistinguishable from one made with significantly more expensive brands. 

I literally did a comparison test to determine if there was a difference and there was not – no one noticed or was like, “Hey! This torte is much better! It must be all the pricey chocolate.” No. That didn’t happen. I only say this to eliminate that cost and potential prohibitive aspect of a recipe that might make it seem out of reach. 

This flourless chocolate torte is absolutely spectacular whether you use expensive chocolate bars and cocoa or store-brand items. You are winning big-time either way. 

Perfectly Whipped Egg Whites = Lighter Cake

In this cake, and most cakes that lack flour, it’s the whipped egg whites that contribute to the light airiness of the final product. You can achieve this with either a stand mixer or a good hand-held. I suppose, if you’re so inclined, you can do this with a whisk and some serious muscle power. Feel that burn! But really, I’d say go for the stand or hand-held … 

As the whites whip, they’ll go through a few distinct stages right before your eyes. It’s cool, yes. They’ll start off frothy and bubbly like, after about 15 to 20 seconds, like ocean waves during a storm. Okay that was a little much, sorry.

Next, after about 15 more seconds, you’ll get to the soft peak stage and, when you lift your whisk out of the whites, they should hold together but droop softly off the end. This is when you want to start adding your sugar (see below). 

In the stiff peaks stage, after another 20 to 30 seconds or so (it all happens pretty fast) the whites will be noticeably more firm and will hold their peak/shape when lifted out of the mixture. The sugar should be fully added by this time as well, and will create a very glossy, shiny mixture that is nothing short of delightful. 

Oh, Sugar Sugar: How to Properly Sweeten Egg Whites

When you need to add granulated sugar to egg whites, timing does, in fact, matter and there is for sure a best practice here. In recipes like this one, that ask you to add sugar to whipped egg whites, the pro tip is to do so gradually, in a gentle stream of sugar, starting just as you hit the soft peak stage. Why? If you start pouring your sugar into the egg whites after the soft peak stage, your mixture will lack height and fluffiness. If you wait too long, and go past the soft peak stage, your mixture won’t combine properly (i.e. it won’t really be much of a mixture at all). It will be gritty.  

So! Just whip your egg whites until they look droopy and soft and slumpy and then go for it – start slowly adding in your sugar at that point.  

Chocolate Torte Tips: Know When to Fold ‘Em

In baking, there are recipes that demand proper mastery of a technique called “folding,” something with which you are probably already familiar. Our flourless chocolate torte-cake today happens to be one of them. 

Essentially, folding is a method of adding your well-whipped egg whites (stiff peaks!) to the chocolate batter in a way that will best preserve all of that air which you’ve taken the time to incorporate into the whites. If you just throw the whites into the batter and stir the heck out of them, paying no mind to tools or technique, then you risk deflating the whole thing and winding up with a very flat, very dense cake in the end. 

To fold properly, just use a big bowl and a great rubber spatula. Be gentle, and a let few steaks of egg white shine through in the end.

 How to Get the Perfect Slice

A trick I learned years ago when I began to grow weary of cutting and photographing cakes and their slices, was to cut the cake with a thin, long knife that is dipped into hot water before each slice and then wiped clean before slicing again. Trust me, this works like a charm and will ensure your Flourless Chocolate Cake slices are clean as a whistle (where did this expression come from?)

If you like the looks of this Flourless Chocolate Fudge Torte, you might want to try:

One-Bowl Texas Chocolate Cake with Milk Chocolate Frosting

Molten Chocolate Cobbler

Brunettes, or The Ultimate Blondies Recipe

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