Chocolate Truffle Heart Cakes (And they’re gluten free!!!)

I have been sitting here trying to decide what to write about these Chocolate Truffle Heart Cakes and I feel like I’m speechless.  I wish I could just show you the pictures and you’d fall in love as much as I did over these.  Let’s just say if you consider yourself a chocolate lover, THIS is the be all-end all decadent, rich chocolate dessert.  These are a cross between the best chocolate cake and fudgy brownies you’ve ever tasted and are doused in an amazing chocolate glaze that once chilled turns into a protective chocolate coating for the rich, dark cake beneath.  You’ll think you want a great big heart (you could cut these with any shape cutter), but really 2-3 inch cutters make the perfect size dessert.  This is very rich.  Serve it with some fresh raspberries or make a coulis with frozen raspberries and a little sugar, you could even set the cake on a pool of coulis.  How about just a little whipped cream?  That’s what we did.

I only have a 4 inch cutter, 2 inch and 1 1/2 inch.  I made two 4 inch ones and a bunch of the smaller ones.    Kevin tried eating one of the 4 inch cakes last night and he couldn’t finish it.  It’s really just SO good, but SO decadent and rich.  And I’m telling you, if you LOVE chocolate, like I LOVE chocolate, this is the one thing you must try!

I got this recipe (and the extreme pleasure of tasting the truffle cake) from two of the classes I took at The Community Mercantile in Lawrence, KS last year.  The first time I had the pleasure of tasting the cake was from a class by Nancy Stark and the other was a Dinner Class for Valentine’s Day from my favorite chef, Paige (A Cooking Life blog).  Paige mentioned in the class that she got the recipe from Nancy and isn’t sure where she got it or if she came up with it herself.  Nancy is also a fantastic chef who really knows desserts and has a business doing wedding cakes and everything else you can imagine.  She teaches many classes, too.  The one I took where I got to taste the truffle cake was a Valentine’s Chocolate Desserts class.  Such a good class!  In the Dinner Class from Paige, she served these with a little homemade creme anglaise.  Let me know if you’d like that recipe.

You need to make these little cakes.  The boys liked them, Kevin likes it, I LOVE it.  I also made some rounded truffles with some of the scraps, because once you cut out shapes, there are scraps.  The fudgy cake then easily rolls into balls.  Enrobe the chilled cakes with this fantastic, glossy Chocolate Glaze.  HEAVEN!  I must tell you, this is not a light dessert.  It is full of good-quality chocolate, eggs, butter, sugar—yeah, all the good stuff.  But hey, there’s no flour—so these are gluten-free!!!  One thing I will mention that I did different from the recipe is that I did not add coffee and while I agree that you don’t really taste the coffee, it just enhances the chocolate flavor, we just don’t buy or use coffee here.  In place of the coffee, you could use fruit juice, any flavorings or do as I did and just use vanilla extract and water. 

Wanna see inside?

The cake easily freezes, and the glaze stores in the fridge for pretty much as long as you’d store butter, so you could just make a few and save the rest for another occasion, but if you have a spouse, kid, friend, lover, neighbor, family member or anyone you know who loves chocolate, you need to make these.  They will love you forever!

Chocolate Truffle Heart Cakes, adapted by Paige Vandegrift from Nancy Stark (I noticed their two recipes aren’t quite exactly the same, but close.) (My changes are in red.—Katrina)

1 cup unsalted butter (8 ounces)

8 ounces best quality semi-sweet chocolate, chopped (I used Ghirardelli 60% cacao chips)

6 large eggs

1 ½ cups granulated sugar (300 grams)

1 cup cocoa powder (92 grams)

¼ cup strong coffee (if you like, place 1 tablespoon of brandy and 1 teaspoon vanilla in a measuring cup and then add coffee to make ¼ cup, or some fruit juice or flavoring as well) (I used 2 teaspoons vanilla extract and the rest water up to 1/4 cup) 

1 recipe chocolate glaze

Prepare a quarter sheet pan (or 9x13 inch cake pan) by spraying it with cooking spray and lining the bottom with parchment paper.

Melt butter, then add chocolate and stir until melted. Measure sugar and cocoa into a large bowl. Stir with a whisk to break up lumps and aerate. Add eggs and coffee (liquid) to bowl and mix well. Whisk in the melted butter and chocolate. Spread into pan and bake at 375 degrees until the surface looks dry (it may be beginning to crack)—about 20-25 minutes. Cool completely, then cover and chill overnight.

Turn chilled cake layer out on to a clean flat surface such as a cutting board. Cut out heart shapes, any size you’d like.  (I found I had to carefully push each heart out of the cutter and I washed the cutter each time.) Anything bigger than 3 inches would almost be too much! Working with one cake at a time, slide an offset spatula under the cake and ladle some of the glaze evenly over the cake, allowing the glaze to drip back into the bowl. Transfer the cake to a wire rack and repeat with the remaining cakes. Chill the cakes. Up to one hour before serving, place the cakes on individual dessert plates to allow the cakes to come to room temperature. To serve, garnish with fresh raspberries and crème anglaise or whipped cream.

Chocolate Glaze:

12 ounces best quality semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped (Again, I used Ghirardelli 60% cacao chips)

9 ounces (18 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cut into pieces

1 ½ tablespoons (31 grams) light corn syrup

2 ½ tablespoons water

Place all ingredients in a medium-sized metal bowl. Place over a pan of steaming water. Stir frequently until mostly melted. Remove from the heat and set aside to finish melting, stirring once or twice until glaze is perfectly smooth. Let glaze cool to about 90 degrees before using.

These Chocolate Truffle Heart Cakes are being added/linked to Lisa’s Sweets for a Saturday.

Check out all the amazing sweets at Lisa’s blog--Sweet As Sugar Cookies.