For those of you who were wondering why Jane was the only one whose birthday cake was chocolate, this post should serve as clarification for your questioning minds.  Jane, who is I swear the sweetest person in the universe, just happens to be allergic to a dear little thing called gluten.  This being said, there is gluten in things that I could never possibly imagine – licorice, Caramilk chocolate bars, etc. etc.  Needless to say, I would die.  Jane, on the other hand, is a super trooper (yes, like the ABBA song) and, since I always feel horrible for making Friday treats she can’t eat, I knew I needed to make her an extra special cake for her birthday.

That’s where this flourless chocolate cake came in.  Meant to serve as a joint birthday/happy last summer orientation day cake, the pressure was on.  I spent countless hours searching the Internet in and out for a gluten-free cake recipe that I thought I could duplicate.  I finally found this awesome blog, Gluten Free Goddess, which then led me to find this recipe.

Since there is (obviously) no flour in this cake, the ingredients were quite unlike what I was used to.  This cake contained a hell of a lot of chocolate – five dark chocolate bars to be exact.  Seeing me carting six chocolate bars through my check out (yes, I bought an extra milk chocolate bar just for me) my overly-curious grocery store cashier kindly asked me if I had just suffered an unfortunate break up.  I couldn’t help but laugh.

This cake also contained EIGHT eggs, the most I have ever used all at one time, including during omelette and breakfast making.  My fridge resources were exhausted.  Another ingredient I was unsure about was the coffee required for this recipe.  In the end, I took a leap of faith, bolted to my local Starbucks and ordered a grande bold to go.  Following what the recipe requires.. always a good choice.

The end result of this cake was a luscious, dense dessert where one could taste just a hint of coffee.   A little less solid and cake-like than what I was used to, it reminded me more of a giant brownie than anything.  Don’t get me wrong, it was still delicious, but I think this whole gluten-free eating thing could take a little getting used to…   Also, made some simple chocolate icing to go on top and added some coloured sprinkles, just for fun!