Chocolate Oblivion Truffle Torte

This is a glorious flourless chocolate cake, and it only uses 3 ingredients. Simple and elegant. It really does taste like a chocolate truffle. It's a crowd pleaser and received many compliments.

A Make-Ahead, Sit-Out-All-Night Cake: I chose this because I could make it a couple of days in advance, and because it could sit out during a party and wouldn't get dry the way a traditional flour- or egg-based cake would. It was still perfectly moist and delicious at the end of the night. However, it is a bit messy to cut if you don't follow the suggestion to use a hot sharp knife.

Chocolate Percentage: I've made this twice, and used a 53% chocolate one time and 60% the other time. Even though I'm a not-too-sweet person, I found the 60% a little too intense and bitter. I'll stick to 53-57% chocolate for this in the future.

When it's Done: According to the author, this should bake to an internal temp of 150F, and the water bath should also be about 150F. For me, the water bath worked well when I filled a tea kettle and brought it to a boil while the eggs were beating, then pulled it off the heat and allowed it to cool a bit while I was folding the chocolate/butter mixture and eggs together. Both times I made this, my torte took longer than the specified baking time for the internal temp to come up to 150F.

Hot Fudge Variation: I also tried the "chocolate torture" variation, with espresso and homemade hot fudge, and have to say that the hot fudge is outstanding and only takes a few minutes to make in the microwave. However, it needs to be quite liquid in order to spread out into a reasonably uniform layer on the cake. Mine was too thick and sunk into the batter in places. Tasted great, but wasn't very pretty.

A second attempt at the hot fudge variation worked well when I used the lukewarm fudge as a topping to pour over the finished, chilled cake. It set up glossy and beautiful at room temp.

The espresso stays in the background and enhances the chocolate, it doesn't come across as a mocha cake.