Individual Flourless Chocolate Cakes With Chocolate Gelato

This is a nice dessert when you don't want many leftovers. Perfect for mid-week.

For The Cake:

4 ounces finely chopped bittersweet chocolate
1/2 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1/2 unsweetened cocoa powder

Grease an 8 inch cake pan and line the bottom with parchment. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

In a small, heavy pan, melt the butter and chocolate over low heat. Remove from heat and whisk in the sugar. Whisk in the eggs. Whisk in the cocoa without over-beating. Pour into pan and bake 25 minutes or until a thin crust forms on top. Cool ten minutes, in pan on a rack, the remove from pan and cool completely. When cold, cut into rounds with a doughnut cutter, or deep cookie cutter. You can also simply cut it with a knife into wedges.

For the Gelato:

2 cups whole milk
5 large egg yolks
2 tablespoons corn syrup
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 lb. dark chocolate
1/2 cup cocoa powder

Chop chocolate finely and sift powdered cocoa into a large, heat-proof bowl. Set a fine sieve over it.

Heat the milk until it steams. In a heat-proof bowl, beat the egg yolks with the corn syrup and sugar until light. Slowly, add the milk to the egg mixture. Return to the stove and cook, whisking until it reaches 175 degrees F.

Strain through the sieve into the chocolate mixture. Whisk until smooth. Place bowl in ice bath until mixture cools. Pour into a freezer tray and stir every 30 minutes until finished (about 2 hours). Transfer to a freezer container to ripen. If you have scraps from the cakes, chop them up and fold them into the gelato at the last stir.

I served this with lashings of chocolate syrup and cherry syrup.

For the chocolate syrup:

1 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup powdered cocoa
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine sugar and water and bring to a boil. Whisk in cocoa and cook over medium heat until desired thickness. remove from heat, whisk in the vanilla. Pour into a clean jar and store in fridge-lasts about a week.