Food & Cooking Recipes Dessert & Treats Recipes Cake Recipes Heart-Shaped Flourless Chocolate Cake 4.3 (15) Rich and chocolatey, this dessert is the perfect finish to a Valentine's Day celebration. Servings: 14 Jump to recipe This flourless chocolate heart cake is rich, custardy, and just right for Valentine’s Day. The much-loved recipe was developed years ago in Martha's catering kitchen by baker Roberta Kins, who once made 38 of them in a single day for a party. It gets its deep, complex flavor from a blend of semisweet chocolate, dark rum, and instant espresso powder, which is combined with whipped eggs, sugar, and whipped cream to form a light, gluten-free batter. Before serving, the cake is inverted onto a platter and decorated with more whipped cream, which helps to hide any imperfections while adding a sweet, picture-perfect finish. 14 of Our Most Decadent Chocolate Cake Recipes Credit: Bryan Gardner Tools and Equipment for This Heart-Shaped Cake Two large heat-proof bowls: You'll use two large, heat-proof bowls when melting the chocolate-rum mixture and heating the egg-sugar mixture. You can use glass or stainless steel; they'll both sit over a saucepan of boiling water to warm at a gentle rate. Use the larger of the two bowls for the egg mixture, as it will triple in volume as it is beaten. Electric mixer: You'll need an electric mixer—either a stand-mixer or hand-held one—to beat the egg and sugar mixture. This will take about five minutes with a stand-mixer and a bit longer than that with a hand-mixer—we don't recommend trying to do this without a mixer. Heart-shaped pan: This recipe was developed to be baked in a 10-inch by 2-in heart-shaped baking pan. If you don't have a heart-shaped pan but still want to make this decadent cake, you can use a 10-inch round or square baking pan instead. Roasting pan: This cake is cooked using a bain marie or water bath, which helps it bake gently in the oven without cracking or becoming tough around the edges. To do so, you'll need a large, shallow roasting pan which you'll fill with boiling water. We love that this cake uses a small amount of unsweetened chocolate in addition to the semisweet chocolate. The darker chocolate lends even more depth of flavor. If desired, you can use 24 ounces of semisweet chocolate instead. Directions Heat oven; prepare pan: Preheat oven to 350°F with rack set in lower third of oven. Butter a 10-by-2-inch heart-shaped pan. Line bottom and sides with parchment paper; set aside. Melt chocolate, espresso, and rum mixture: In a small bowl, combine the espresso and water. Stir to dissolve. In a heatproof bowl, combine the chocolates, espresso mixture, and rum over a saucepan of simmer water. Stir until smooth. Remove, and set aside. Heat egg-sugar mixture; beat: Over the same saucepan of simmering water, combine the eggs and granulated sugar in a large heatproof bowl. Beat, using a handheld electric mixer, until thick, fluffy, and almost tripled in volume. Whip cream; add sugar and vanilla: Whip the cream in a chilled bowl until soft peaks form. Add the confectioners' sugar and vanilla. Combine batter components; transfer to pan: Fold the melted-chocolate mixture into the egg mixture. Gently fold in the whipped cream. Transfer to prepared pan. Prepare water bath; add cake and bake: Place a large roasting pan in the oven, and fill 1 inch with boiling water. Immediately set the heart pan in the roasting pan. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 1 hour. Remove from oven; let cool, then cover and chill: Remove from oven, and let cool in the water bath. When cool, cover, and refrigerate overnight. Remove cake from pan; pipe with whipped cream: Just before serving, uncover the pan, and warm slightly in an inch of warm water to loosen from pan. Invert onto a platter. Pipe the sweetened whipped cream onto the chocolate heart with a decorative tip, if desired. Storage This cake can be refrigerated, covered or in an airtight container, for up to three days. You can also wrap the cake well in a double-layer of plastic wrap and a layer of aluminum foil and freeze it for up to three months. More Flourless Chocolate Cake Recipes: Four-Ingredient Flourless Chocolate Cake Flourless Chocolate-Almond Torte With Cherry Preserves and Kirsch Meringue Flourless Chocolate Espresso Cake Flourless Chocolate-Date Cake With Salted-Caramel Glaze Flourless Chocolate-Walnut Torte Updated by Esther Reynolds Esther Reynolds Esther Reynolds is an experienced recipe developer, recipe tester, food editor, and writer with over a decade of experience in the food and media industries.