Challenge: No Flour Allowed - Chocolate Truffle Cake

Today was my boss and my dear coworker's birthdays (yes, they share the same birthday, and there's another lady in the department down the hall that also had her birthday today), so likely always I made a cake for the occasion.  This time around, however, they were proactive in planning the celebration and had taken care of the fruits and snack and cake - but there was one coworker in our group that was allergic to gluten and it didn't seem like he could enjoy the cakes nor the other treats.  So I rose to the challenge and made a cake that he, too, can enjoy: a chocolate truffle cake.

The original recipe was found in Good Housekeeping Great Baking (which, by the way, is the best cookbook EVER), this is adapted to what I had in terms of time and ingredients:






Wrap bottom of an 9” spring-form pan with foil and grease. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.


In big bowl, make ganache by combining 1 cup unsalted butter, cut into chunks, and 16 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips (1 1/2 bag of Hershey's special dark chocolate chips) - microwave at low power for 30 seconds, stir, then repeat until melted and smooth.




In another bowl, beat 9 egg yolks with mixer at high speed until thick and lemon-coloured, about 3 minutes. Gently fold yolks into ganache using rubber spatula until just blended (colour uniform throughout).




In another CLEAN bowl and CLEAN beaters, beat 9 egg whites at high speed until almost stiff (soft peak = when you lift beaters the whites stay standing but doesn’t hold its shape). Gently fold 1/3 of the ganache mixture into the whites then fold the whites into the rest of the ganache.  Fold just until cake batter is uniform in colour.




Pour cake batter into pan and bake for 35 minutes.  Remove from oven immediately – the centre will still be jiggly but DO NOT OVERBAKE.  Let cake cool in pan for an hour then transfer into fridge – refrigerate overnight.




Run knife around the side of cake to separate from pan, then remove side of spring-form pan. Invert cake onto serving plate then lift pan bottom and peel off foil. Dust with confectioner’s sugar or garnish with whipped cream (which I had forgot to bring today, but it still turned out great - it's just that it doesn't look very pretty...)