Jamie Oliver Chocolate Cake

Jamie Oliver’s chocolate cake is a flourless, five-ingredient sponge of dark chocolate, butter, eggs, golden caster sugar and cocoa, baked in a tray in 15 minutes. It’s gluten-free and serves 16.

In Simply Jamie (2024) this isn’t a finished iced cake but a base, built to become other puddings. Jamie bakes it, then turns it into his chocolate tiramisù or a Black Forest roll. On its own it’s a rich, fudgy flourless sponge from good 70% dark chocolate.

With no flour, all the lift comes from eggs. You whisk the yolks with sugar until pale, whip the whites to stiff peaks, and fold them in gently. That trapped air is the only thing raising the cake, so knock it out and you lose the texture entirely.

Jamie Oliver Chocolate Cake

Recipe by Pinch Perfect

0.0 from 0 votes

Course: DessertCuisine: BritishDifficulty: Easy

Servings

16

servings

Prep time

20

minutes

Cooking time

15

minutes

Calories

238

kcal

Total time

35

minutes

Jamie’s flourless base cake from Simply Jamie: dark chocolate, butter, eggs, sugar and cocoa whisked and folded into a rich tray sponge in 15 minutes. Gluten-free, serves sixteen.

Ingredients

• 300g (10½ oz) quality dark chocolate (70%)

• 100g (3½ oz) unsalted butter

• 8 large free-range eggs

• 200g (7 oz) golden caster sugar

• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder

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Directions

• Melt the chocolate:Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4. Snap the chocolate into a large heatproof bowl, add the butter, and melt over a pan of gently simmering water, stirring regularly and keeping the water off the base of the bowl. Leave to cool slightly.
• Whisk the yolks:Separate the eggs. Whisk the yolks with the caster sugar for 2 minutes, until pale and fluffy, then stir in the melted chocolate.
• Whip and fold:Whisk the egg whites with a pinch of sea salt until stiff. Working in batches, gently fold them into the chocolate mixture, then sift and fold in the cocoa.
• Bake:Pour the batter into a greased 25cm x 30cm roasting tray, or spread it across a 30cm x 40cm lined baking tray, depending on how you’ll use it. Bake for 15 minutes exactly, until just springy to the touch and gooey in the middle.

Notes

• Note (serving): Turn it into a proper pud by serving it with your favourite seasonal fruit: cherries, berries, segments of orange, whatever you fancy.

FAQs

How does it hold together with no flour?

The eggs do everything flour normally would. Whisking the yolks with sugar builds a rich, aerated base, and whipping the whites to stiff peaks creates the structure and lift. Folded together, they set in the oven into a sponge that rises then settles to a dense, fudgy crumb.

Because there’s no flour and no raising agent, the air you beat in is all you get. That’s why the folding stage is where this cake is won or lost. Treat the whipped whites gently and the cake stays light; beat them in roughly and it bakes flat and heavy.

Why fold the egg whites in batches?

Tipping all the stiff whites in at once forces you to over-mix to combine them, which knocks out the very air you whipped in. Adding a batch first slackens the heavy chocolate mixture, so the remaining whites fold in easily while keeping their volume.

Use a light hand and a cutting, lifting motion, not a stir. Think of lifting the mixture over itself rather than beating it. Sift the cocoa over and fold it in last, gently, so it disperses without clumping or deflating the batter.

Why bake it for exactly 15 minutes?

Jamie is specific here: 15 minutes exactly. You want it just springy on top but still soft and gooey in the middle, which is where its richness lives. A flourless cake has no starch to keep it moist, so it dries out much faster than a normal sponge.

Don’t test it with a skewer expecting it to come out clean, because it shouldn’t. Go by the time and the gentle spring of the surface. A few minutes too long turns it from silky and fudgy into dry and crumbly, so pull it on the dot.

What chocolate should I use?

Quality dark chocolate at 70% is essential, since it’s the main flavour and there’s nowhere for a cheap bar to hide. The higher cocoa content also keeps the cake from being sickly, balancing the sugar with real bitterness. This is a cake worth buying good chocolate for.

Milk chocolate won’t work as a swap, as it’s too sweet and sets too soft for the structure. The pinch of salt whisked into the whites is small but worth it, sharpening the chocolate and rounding out the sweetness.

It’s a base cake, so what do I turn it into?

That’s the clever bit. Jamie designs this to become other puddings, most famously his chocolate tiramisù, where the baked sponge is soaked and layered with a creamy topping, and a Black Forest roll. Baked flat in the larger tray, it’s ready to soak, fill or roll.

Eaten as it is, it’s already a “proper pud” with seasonal fruit piled on, as Jamie suggests. This make-once, use-many approach is the same thinking behind his reliable sweet shortcrust pastry, a base you bake ahead and turn into whatever you fancy.

Can I make it ahead, and does it keep?

It keeps well for 2 to 3 days, covered, and many people prefer its dense, truffle-like texture on the second day, chilled from the fridge. It also freezes, wrapped well, for up to a month, so you can bake the base ahead of whatever pudding you’re building.

It’s vegetarian and naturally gluten-free, though not vegan, given the butter and eggs. If you want a lighter pudding another day, pear and blackberry crumble is a good contrast.