Torta Caprese – Flourless Chocolate Almond Cake

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If you’re in need of a flourless chocolate cake, look no further than this traditional italian torta caprese! Made with melted dark chocolate and ground almonds, our torta caprese is incredibly rich, decadent and guaranteed to satisfy all of the chocolate lovers in your life!

originally published 12.22.2020

While the origins of the torta caprese are disputed, my favorite version goes something like this: It’s the 1920s and three mobsters working for Al Capone visit the island of Capri. They stop by a well-known bakery for something sweet (as mobsters often do) and the chef, perhaps a bit distracted by his unexpected guests, forgets to add flour to his cake. Luckily, the men love the cake so much that they request the recipe! And thus the torta caprese is born.

Although I’m not fully sold on this unique origin story, the gluten-free chocolate cake has definitely won me over. With its thin crispy crust and incredibly soft and fudgy inside, this torta caprese is impossible to resist!

making torta caprese

Making the torta caprese doesn’t take long, but it does require a bit more than just measuring and mixing. The first and most important step is to choose your chocolate. I like 60-70% dark chocolate for this recipe but something a little sweeter or even a bit darker would work as well. Just make sure to use a higher quality chocolate since it is the main ingredient in the cake. The next step is to finely chop the chocolate and melt it along with the butter. Then just stir together with almond meal and salt!

And we’re already to the last step — adding the eggs! You can add the egg yolks right to the chocolatey mixture, but the egg whites need to first be whipped along with the sugar until stiff peaks form. Then you’ll carefully fold the egg whites into the chocolate mixture. Slow and steady is the name of the game here. You don’t want to deflate the egg whites, but you do need to make sure that they’re fully incorporated. Just use a spatula to repeatedly scoop up the batter from the bottom of the bowl and fold it over the top. Repeat this motion until everything is mixed together!

Next pour the batter into a very well greased round cake tin and bake for 35-40 minutes. You’ll know the cake is ready when it’s dry on the top. To make sure the inside is cooked, you can also insert a toothpick — as long as it comes out mostly clean, the cake should be ready to go! A few dry crumbs attached to the toothpick is perfectly okay.

a sprinkling of powdered sugar

If you want, go ahead and eat your torta caprese warm and straight from the pan. We won’t judge. But if you’d like a little extra embellishment, I recommend waiting at least 30 minutes and then turning it upside down onto a serving platter and adding a sprinkling of powdered sugar. If you’re worried about the cake coming out clean, you can add a layer of parchment paper to the bottom of the pan before pouring in the batter. But generally greasing the pan well is enough for the cake to easily come out.

Many times bakers will sift the powdered sugar over stencils to create patterns on top of the cake, but I like to keep it simple with a light sprinkling over the entire cake!

Looking to add even more chocolate to your life? Give these a try!

• red velvet brownies
• chocolate chip marzipan cookies
• chocolate amaretto truffles
• german chocolate cookies

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