Contemplations on Chocolate: Flourless Chocolate Cake Recipe

First off, chocolate is a must. Life would be incomplete without chocolate. I'm convinced that the world revolves around chocolate. I mean, where would we be without chocolate!

My mom has an apron--well-used and quite faded--that starts off with "Oh, how I love thee, chocolate! Let me count the ways: broiled, steamed, flambaéed, diced, braised..." It's probably the first apron I grab when I start to cook; I just love it!

Just this week I had some friends over for a New Year's Eve party and one friend showed up with 3 bars of Ghirardelli dark chocolate. I have to say that was a pretty wonderful hostess gift!

Now, on to the real reason for this post. This flourless chocolate cake will rock your world. It's from one of my favorite blogs, A Beautiful Mess. Go head over there and subscribe, like, follow, and pin their amazing projects, how-tos, gift ideas, recipes, and home make-overs. Or just hang out and you'll see some of their projects pop up on here.

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Flourless Chocolate (Coconut) Cake

Adapted from Martha Stewart's Cakes via A Beautiful Mess

9 ounces dark chocolate (I used 3 of our Toasted Coconut bars)
6 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
6 tablespoons butter

In a double boiler, or in the microwave, melt together the chocolate and butter. Allow to cool for a few minutes. In the meantime, separate the egg whites from the yolks. Add a small amount of the warm chocolate to the bowl with the yolks and stir to combine (this will temper the yolks). Then stir the yolks into the chocolate mixture.

Beat the egg whites until they become foamy. While the mixture is running, slowly add in the sugar. Beat until soft peaks form. Gently fold the egg whites into the chocolate mixture.

Generously butter the bottom and inside edges of a 10" springform pan—or, as I like to call it, a cheesecake pan. :) Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake at 275°F for 45 minutes.

The cake should pull away from pan towards the end of baking. Allow to fully cool before you try to cut into the cake. Serve with a little more toasted coconut, fresh whipped cream, or vanilla ice cream.

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I made this cake just this afternoon and enjoyed it with a tall glass of cold milk. Delightfully moist, not-to-sweet, and not as dense as other flourless cakes.

Make this cake. Like now.

P.S. If you're looking for a chilled flourless cake (well it's more of a mousse) that would be perfect for Valentine's Day, try out this Flourless Red Wine Chocolate Cake.

I miss Cadbury chocolate...

Chocolate...

Thank you Wikipedia for debunking my favorite theory:

From wikipedia: phenethylamine

Who cares; eat more chocolate.

Valentine's *1 week late*...

{{{So yeah, last week was insane with 3 major tests, bi-weekly meetings 

(that happened to all fall on last week), and mediating between roommates 

on my floor... so this post is 7-days in coming.}}}

The last two years (2009, 2010) I've been at the Renewal conference with the Navigators over Valentine's weekend. This year the retreat was moved to February 25-27th, so I was in town for Valentine's... and I was not looking forward to it.

I'm taking country western dance lessons with a friend of mine on Sunday nights, and last week I was late to our first lesson because I'd been home for the weekend for a friend's funeral. My mind wasn't focused on learning the polka because I was prioritizing the massive amount of studying I had to do and calculating how late I was going to have to stay in "the annex"--the only building on main campus that is pretty much open 24/7 and is a popular hang out for stressed students pulling all-nighters.

My friend then warned me as we were headed back to my room, "Meghan's (my Bible study co-leader) got a little surprise planned for you. I promise it won't take more than about 10 minutes. But be sweet... she's just trying to show she cares about you, your friend's funeral, and the fact that you're stressed."  OK, fine. I'll humor her. 10 minutes. That's it. Then off to the annex to cram for Therapeutic Principles.

I walked into my room and a few minutes later I answered a knock on the door to find not just Meghan, but 3 of my other best girl friends--Sarah, Becca, and Abigail. They brought me Godiva dark chocolate and lots of hugs. :)

Then, my door opened again and our 3 guy friends walked in with roses, chocolate (they brought me ground coffee instead!), and cards for each of us! Sarah's fiancé had been in town for the weekend and he, along with another friend who was holed up in the architecture studio, had been in on the planning of the whole shindig. Meghan knew what the guys were planning and had orchestrated an excuse to have all of us girls in the same room.

The cards the guys had for each of us were perfectly picked. This was the cover of mine...

on the inside it reads "... sure hasn't been to Forks, Washington."

The most epic part about it is what plays when you open the card:

Edward-"I will love you, every moment of forever." 

Jacob-"I will fight for you, until your heart stops beating."

Let's just say that I almost died laughing... beside the fact that every single person who was in the room (girls included) makes fun of my liking Twilight, I loved it! :) I still can't believe that the the guys scoured the Valentine's card section to find the perfect cards for each of us 4 girls, took time to write something in each card, and arranged the whole thing. I've got amazing girl friends who came to cheer me up, and I've got incredible guy friends who went out of their way to make us all feel special.

Ok, it took longer than 10 minutes... but it sure made staying up until 3:15am a whole lot more bearable!

Loved...

Ah, yes... the regulatory Valentine's day post. I was really depressed about it this year and was basically like, who cares, it's not like it's a holiday that really means anything. It's a Hallmark holiday, a day to recieve flowers and chocolate and be disappointed when Mr. Right is either absent or just doesn't make me feel as special as I was hoping. I think I will just boycott the holiday!

And in a way, I did just that. I spent the weekend at a retreat in Dallas with over 250 other college students from all over the South Central US. The conference was part of the Navigators, and I am in one of their small-group Bible studies here at A&M. It was a great weekend, a great roadtrip there and back, lots of laughter and late nights, amazing prayer, and very little sleep. :-) It's a little weird doing stuff with the Navs group from A&M, because the only thing I am able to do is the small group study; I am busy with dance company pretty much any time Navs plans anything! So it was good to mingle with a few of my fellow Aggies.

OK, that was a random side note and had nothing to really do with solving my boycott of such a world-wide holiday. :-)

Valentine's day has always been pretty low-key at my house. We would usually have a special dinner at home, perhaps write a sweet note to a sibling, and generally have a normal day. I've never been one to get the whole conversation hearts thing (I mean, have you actually read a whole package of them? Sheesh... when I was little they said cute sayings!), and I missed out on the idea of buying premade valentines, filling in the "to" and "from" lines, and stuffing them in your friends' lockers and hoping that you can sneak one to your secret crush. I'm used to February 14th being a normal day. And I knew that hanging around College Station on Valentine's day would only be awkward at best. :-)

So, what are girls like me supposed to do? There is no Mr. Right in the picture (and I'm not looking either!), my roommate's out of town and my girlfriends from dance company have their own plans with their boyfriends/sororities. And to top it all off I just had the DTR talk (Define The Relationship) with one of my guy friends here--I just defined that there is nothing going on between us and there is no hope for anything in the future... yet. What am I supposed to do when Happy Hearts day rolls around? It's a little hard to ignore it, but what else do I do?

You know how people say, "Enjoy your single years, you'll have a special guy in time. Wait for it."Gee thanks... or then the ever-present, "Make Jesus the love of your life for now. Let Him woo you. Fall in love with Him." That sounds so cliché, and I just kind of brushed it off. And then I remembered a verse that an older lady told me several years ago. She had a group of us older girls from homeschool group over to her house for a Valentine's party and she shared this verse with us:
Romans 5:5 "Such hope never disappoints or deludes or shames us, for God's love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us." (Amplified)

Wow... God's love never disappoints us, betrays our hopes, or makes us feel guilty for wanting to be loved and treasured. He didn't sprinkle His love into our lives, He poured it out into our hearts. And He did it by the Holy Spirit who is a deposit guarraneteeing His return! Or the Message says it this way:
"We're never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can't round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit! "

This is no case of a small box of Walmart chocolates and a semi-wilted boquet of red airbrushed roses from the grocery store, this is more Godiva and Dove chocolate than I could eat in my lifetime, a personal rose garden with a different breed for every day of the year! And even more than that! I can't round up enough vases, or enough friends to help me eat the chocolate! It keeps getting poured out...and the best part is that it doesn't stop at 12:01am on the 15th--it's not a once-a-year holiday!

So yeah, it's nice to get flowers and a card and spend some time with a special guy, but I think that I may just boycott the holiday in my own way, head to a coffee shop and have a date with the Lord. Seems that I've been longing for something, and I think I just found out the ultimate source of that love! In some ways it doesn't make my desire for human love any easier to ignore, but I've got a lot of containers to "round up" if I am going to try to fathom the depths of His love!

Ah, it's good to be loved...