Twinkle's Kitchen | Celebrate chocolate

I can’t describe to you in words the depth of my love for chocolate, but I can definitely bake something that helps illustrate my feelings.

Photos: 10 recipes to celebrate chocolate

One of my favorite desserts to make is also one of my first baking successes. It’s a basic, flourless chocolate cake. That’s right. Not one sprinkle of flour in this recipe.
It’s perfect for those of us who can’t eat gluten or choose not to.

It does, however, have a LOT of chocolate, butter and eggs. With a rich, creamy consistency, this simple dish can bump any nightly meal up a few notches and is an easy and impressive dessert to serve when you have company.

Garnished with fresh fruit or a berry couli, this cake is best without a lot of additions interfering with the flavor of the chocolate.

Twinkle’s Chocolate Torte

6 eggs
1 cup unsalted butter, chopped into pieces
1 cup white sugar
10 oz. chopped bittersweet chocolate
½ cup cocoa
1 tsp. kosher or fine sea salt
1tbs. vanilla extract
1 10-in. spring form pan
Parchment paper

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Grease your spring form pan and coat with a little cocoa.

Cut out a piece of parchment to fit on the bottom of the pan to aid in a better release of the cake after baking.

Place the bittersweet chocolate chunks and the butter in a small saucepan on medium low. Slowly let the two ingredients melt together, stirring occasionally to keep from burning.

Whisk together the cocoa, sugar and salt in a large bowl.

In a smaller bowl, whisk together the eggs and vanilla.

Slowly add the egg mixture to the cocoa mixture.

Once the chocolate and butter on the stove have melted, mix it into the cocoa/egg batter a little at a time, approximately in three small batches.

Once everything is in one bowl, beat with whisk for about 30 seconds and pour into prepared spring form pan.

Pop the pan into the oven for 40-45 minutes. The middle should still be a tad wobbly when it is ready to come out of the oven.

Let the cake cool completely. You can also refrigerate the cake overnight for a denser consistency and richer flavor.

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Twinkle VanWinkle was born in a small town in Mississippi. A life-long lover of music, media and food, she grew up following those three things along her path. She has almost 20 years of professional cooking under her apron strings, feeding thousands of friends, family and other folks while working in restaurants and bakeries in Oxford, Miss. She baked apple pies for the “Oprah Winfrey Show” and appeared on “The Best Of...” in the same year. Along with producing dynamic entertainment content for LIN Media, she is a mother, musician and social media fanatic.

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