Flourless Chocolate Cake is a fudgy chocolate cake made with just 4 ingredients and just 5 minutes of work before it goes in the oven! The easiest impressive cake you’ll ever make!
We have all your favorite classic dessert cakes on the site including Chocolate Cake, Vanilla Cake, Yellow Cake, Red Velvet Cake and even Oreo Cake but this is our only flourless cake and I promise it is the only one you’ll ever need!
Flourless Chocolate Cake Recipe
Flourless Chocolate Cake (Flourless Chocolate Torte) is enough of a description to sell me on this recipe, but the fact that it is only 4 ingredients and no stand mixer to clean makes it a total no brainer.
This cake isn’t like your normal chocolate cake from a box mix (check out my box mix hack!) with icing, it is more like a cross between fudge and ganache with the texture of cheesecake. It is flour free and nut free (no almond flour in this recipe!) and all the texture of the cake comes from the fudgy combination of egg, chocolate and sugar baking into a solid yet creamy chocolate ganache.
With Passover and Easter coming up soon this is the perfect recipe for the holidays. In fact you can make this chocolatey dessert recipe and if there are any leftovers you’ll love them even more the next day.
With something so rich I find a small slice is usually plenty and the best part is that leftovers are just as good. This cake not only doesn’t go stale but the silky texture of it is completely transformed in the fridge to a firm fudge-like texture that is just addicting.
Is Flourless Chocolate Cake Gluten-Free?
Yes, Flourless Chocolate Cake is gluten free and if you swap butter for margarine it is also dairy-free.
The cake is so simple there isn’t even any dry ingredients except for sugar. If you’d like to grease and “flour” your pan you can do so with some cocoa powder in place of flour for two reasons. First, it will stay flourless (read: gluten-free) that way and second the cocoa powder will allow it to stay this beautiful chocolate color and not get white dust on the outer layer of the cake.
What is flourless chocolate cake made of?
Flourless Chocolate Cake is made simply of chocolate, sugar, eggs and butter.
Should flourless chocolate cake be refrigerated?
No, it does not need to be refrigerated but it should be kept in an airtight container.
How do you know when flourless chocolate cake is done?
- The edges of your cake will pull away from the pan.
- A toothpick should come out clean, not with batter.
- The top should not leave a depression when touched.
What makes a torte a torte?
The difference between a cake and a torte is that a torte is classically made with little to no flour. It is classically made with a nut or breadcrumb mixture.
In this case the use of no flour allows us to refer to this Flourless Chocolate Cake Recipe as a cake or a flourless chocolate torte.
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Optional topping ideas:
- Chopped berries or your favorite fruit (these are my go-to option with some fresh whipped cream).
- A tropical twist with toasted coconut flakes and chopped mango.
- Easy Strawberry Topping or Homemade Pineapple Topping
- Homemade Whipped cream with chocolate shavings
- Whipped coconut cream
- Homemade Cool Whip (or store bought!)
- Vanilla Ice Cream, Cake Batter Ice Cream or Strawberry Sorbet
- Peanut butter! But put it in a little bowl and microwave it for 15-20 seconds so it is runny.
- Hot Fudge Sauce or Salted Caramel Sauce
- Chocolate Ganache- melt equal part chocolate chips and heavy cream in a microwave safe bowl for one minute. Let sit for one minute then stir until creamy.
Flourless Chocolate Cake for Passover:
For Passover: If you are enjoying a dairy meal, this cake will fit right in as is. If you are having a meat meal, you’ll need to swap out margarine and non dairy chocolate for the butter and chocolate.
Tips for the BEST Flourless Chocolate Cake:
- Don’t use chocolate chips here, I use high quality disks or chocolate bars because chocolate chips have a coating that prevents them from sticking/melting together well.
- High quality chocolate matters more when baking and your entire recipe is only 4 ingredients.
- Make sure the eggs are room temperature, they’ll combine better with the melted butter and chocolate.
- Make sure the foil is completely surrounding the bottom of the pan to prevent any water from leaking in.
- Don’t forget to cover your pan with foil! It will burn if you forget.
- If you want to add a bit more flavor you can add vanilla extract, orange extract, mint extract, almond extract, coffee extract or even instant espresso powder to the recipe.
- You can use any chocolate you’d prefer, I use dark chocolate but bittersweet and semi-sweet would be great too. I wouldn’t recommend using milk or white chocolate in this recipe.
- If you want to skip using a spring form pan and bake in a cake pan instead you’re going to have a difficult time getting the cake out of the pan. If you line with parchment paper then refrigerate until completely firm you may be able to carefully lift it out of a cake pan.
- If you prefer not to use the microwave to make the chocolate mixture you can add the butter and the chocolate to a non-stick saucepan on medium-low heat until melted.
- Your batter will be very liquidy, but the cake is going to bake for 75 minutes, so don’t worry about how thin the batter looks.
More Easy Chocolate Desserts:
- Chocolate Covered Graham Crackers
- Chocolate Covered Oreos
- Chocolate Covered Strawberries
- Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Pretzels
- Chocolate Covered Pretzels
Ingredients
- 12 ounces dark chocolate
- 16 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 5 large eggs , room temperature
- 1 1/4 cups sugar
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees and spray an 10″ springform pan with baking spray then place the base of the pan in foil to seal the bottom from letting any water leak in from a water bath.
- Melt the chocolate and butter together in a microwave safe bowl in 30 second increments until completely smooth then let it cool for five minutes.
- In a large bowl whisk together the sugar and eggs until fully combined then very slowly pour in the chocolate while whisking quickly until fully combined.
- Pour the mixture into your springform pan, cover tightly with foil and place into a pan two inches larger than your springform pan and fill 1″ high with very hot water, then bake for 75 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and from the water bath and cool completely before serving.
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Nutrition
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Can you substitute coconut oil for the butter?
I haven’t tried coconut oil as a substitute for butter. Did you try it?
Made this for Mother’s Day. Easy to make and was amazing with whipped cream and raspberries. The moms approved. ??
Aw, that sounds lovely for Mother’s Day. Thank you Jill for your kind words.
All i have on hand is milk chocolate chips. Can i use them for this recipe or what is the science behind needing to use dark chocolate?
Dark chocolate contains less sugar, which prevents it from burning when melted, and also ensures that you won’t end up with an overly sweet flavor in your creations
I spent three days looking for the perfect recipe for a flourless chocolate cake. All of them were too intense with so many steps…then I remembered Sabrina! I grabbed my Dinner, Then Dessert Bible (seriously I have used it that much), and viòla! I made a cake worthy of royalty. I sliced it up and froze the bulk of it. Fantastic recipe. Elegant melty in-your-mouth chocolate confection.
Excellent recipe !! My husband has to do gluten-free and this was AMAZING ! We boiled the water before adding it to the pan and the cake took about 125 minutes to bake. We cooled it in the fridge and then served it, everyone loved it
Read all the comments but still decided to give it a try. Followed the directions to the letter. Still way underdone even after 85 minutes. Gave up and tossed it. What a waste of good and expensive ingredients. Extremely disappointed..and annoyed.
Revised review: I decided not to toss it as stated in my initial review. I placed it in the refrigerator, after cooling at room temp for an hour, which helped it firm up. My family enjoyed it, but I will not make this recipe again.
The recipe says dark chocolate bars.. All I seem to be able to find is Ghirardelli premium baking bar 60% cacao bittersweet chocolate. Is that considered dark chocolate.
I can also find Bakers choice unsweetened baking squares..
Can you give an example of what you would recommend….
No, not unsweetened those are super different. The bar you referenced would work great. I have also since retested this with dark chocolate chunks AND dark chocolate chips and they both turned out well. Same Ghirardelli brand.
Hi Sabrina,
I have a springform pan, but whenever I do a water bath, it leaks even with foil wrapped around it?
Also, I don’t have another pan that is slightly larger than my springform pan…could I put it in a square pan with 1 inch of water for the water bath? Thanks so much! I look forward to making this soon.
Sure!
Can a 9 inch springform pan be used?
It might be too much batter for that size and would need longer to bake. A 10 inch pan can hold up to 12 cups of batter while a 9 inch holds only 10 cups of batter.
This cake was marvelous. I, too, did not understand that the whole cake should be wrapped in foil. We do not have foil sizes here that go beyond 12 inches, so it is tough to cover the whole thing with multiple wrappings. I did just the bottom with several rounds and water still got in, although I had the metal foil covering the sides as well. I also did not have a pan to put into the ove which is just 2 inches larger than the spring form. I used a deep over tray which only had an inch and a half height, but it worked. The water did seep in, but it only really made it difficult to get off the baking paper which was soaked. I served it on the bottom of the spring form. It was really delicious, I made a little change by adding two spoonfuls of mascapone cheese to and cut down the butter a little bit (I worried a bit because when melting together with the chocolate, it curdled a bit -but this didn’t matter in the end). This may have helped it coagulate better and not absorb the water…
I made this cake in a 9 in. square pan ( because I don’t have a springform), coated the bottom and sides with butter, put parchment on the bottom, and left in fridge to harden per instructions. I followed instructions, but used both bittersweet chocolate and dark chocolate chips. They melted fine in the double boiler with the butter. It baked (covered with foil )for 75 min. in a water bath.I made this for my birthday, which happens to be today.
I just had to get a little taste beforehand -so fudgy and delicious!
My problem is that it didn’t rise as much as the picture. Eggs were room temp. Wondering why that is?
So sorry your comment was stuck in my spam filter. I’m so glad it was still amazing even those it didn’t rise as much. A big culprit of that is overbearing the batter or doing it too quickly or vigorously. It deflates because the air has been beaten out. Happy belated birthday!
It has been in for forever. How long does it really need?! 🙁
Same problem. I wish I would have read the reviews before baking this recipe.
I’m baking in individual portions – how long do you think they would take to bake?
I would think for about 20-25 minutes. Bake them until the edges begin to pull away from the ramekins and the tops are set. Enjoy!
With the ramekins…would you cover with tinfoil as well?
Yes 🙂
Came out amazing! I melted the chocolate in a double broiler. It took mine about 80 minutes to bake. Probably could’ve used another five minutes. It was my first time using a water bath. Now I just have to hold back on eating the whole thing!
lol! That is the hardest part officially speaking. So glad you enjoyed it and thank you so much for the review!
I normally make a different chocolate flourless cake but this one was titled EASY and even though my other recipe was easy, I was like wow this only has four ingredients, let’s do it. So far my cake has been in the oven for 75 minutes, plus 15, plus 15, plus 15, and is still not done. I’m super irritated it isn’t setting up. It’s in a springform pan, surrounded by tin foil, in a pan of water. Not understanding why this is happening.
So sorry I missed this. Sounds like the water wasn’t heating up fast enough, so the temp of the oven may have been off? If you make it again, you can always add boiling water to the water pan to help.
Does the top of the cake need to be covered by foil while it cooks or just the bottom of the pan? Thanks!
The top needs to be covered tightly with foil.
This should really be in the directions of the recipe. I will still be eating it since it’s got 12oz of good dark chocolate in it. I usually skip to the recipe but once it came out and looked nothing like your pictures I started reading everything.
I read cover tightly with foil but assumed it was for the bottom of the pan because of the water bath. Not that it was for the top of the pan
I just made this for a dear friend’s birthday. We will be having it tomorrow! I will be dressing this delicious cake with fresh strawberries that were soaked in a little sugar, lemon juice and a dash of vanilla. We’re topping it off with marshmallow whipped cream and toasted coconut for a bit of crunch! So easy to make. Thank you!!
Sounds heavenly!
Hi I really want to make this cake for my daddies birthday tomorrow is it good?
My husband is borderline diabetic. Can Splenda be substituted and still have cake come out similarly? In several recipes I’ve tried, it seems Splenda bakes differently than regular sugar.
I haven’t tested it so I’m not sure. If you decide to try, I’d love to know how it turns out. Thanks!
This recipe works great with Splenda as well as other sugar free sweeteners like Swerve, Monk Fruit and Truvia
Thanks for the feedback Lisa.
If I am using candy bars that are 3.5oz does that mean about 4 candy bars to make this? That seems like an awful lot of chocolate. Does this come out like cake or more like fudge? Sounds really decadent.
Yes, not quite 4 bars total. This has a denser consistency than your normal cake. I hope you enjoy it!
Will refrigerating the cake affect it negatively? I’d rather keep it in the refrigerator so my dog can’t get to it 🙂
I don’t blame you!! It will thicken the texture to be more firm and fudge-like but it’s still just as amazing in flavor. Enjoy!