You can't have enough flourless chocolate cakes

We are over a week into the new school year - 3rd grade for my little guy! After more than ten weeks of summer vacation, we were both ready for school again (okay, maybe mom more so than child).  This was the first year that I slept easy the night before school began - no nerves or nightmares!  Maybe it was a sign because so far, so good...I have a really good feeling about the year but I'll continue to keep my fingers crossed!

To kick off the school year, we like to have a little celebration dinner and I've gotten into the habit of making a "back-to-school cake" (like this one and this one).  You don't need a reason for cake but it's certainly nice to have something to celebrate so I appreciate every opportunity.  I had intended to try the Hershey's chocolate cake as our back-to-school cake this year but since that became a birthday cake for a family gathering, I looked for another idea. Forgetting that I'm supposed to be "playing with flour", I went with something sure to please (us, anyway) - flourless chocolate cake!

I've made and enjoyed many flourless chocolate cakes; this everyday version and this far more decadent one comes straight to mind but there have been many.  Much like molten chocolate cake or brownies, I feel like you can't have enough flourless chocolate cakes so here's another recipe to try.  If, like us, you love chocolate and use the kind you like to eat to make the cake, it can be a little slice of chocolate heaven.  Add some vanilla ice cream into the picture and you have a pretty great way to cap off a celebration dinner at home.

This particular flourless chocolate cake is called "Racines Cake" because the recipe comes from a restaurant in Paris by that name.  It's a recipe I've bookmarked for a long time from one of my favorite cookbooks.  With the exception of the cocoa nib topping for this cake, there's frankly not a whole lot separating this particular flourless chocolate cake from others.  So in other words, it was predictably good!  Simple as that.  It's a moist, chocolaty, smooth cake.  I think it has just the right amount of richness to it.  To make sure you end up with a fudgy, moist interior, check on the cake early so that you pull it out while it still seems just a bit wet in the center. My little cake only needed about 16-17 minutes in the oven.

You'll notice I shrank this cake down to size to make a small-family friendly 6-inch.  It's not that we can't handle a 9-inch cake of this kind but I like to make room for other desserts!  When we were vacationing in San Francisco a few weeks ago, I got a chance to check out the adorable Miette Bakery at the Ferry Building.  Known for their small cakes, I saw they had some 6" baking pans with removable bottoms for sale.  I was very tempted to buy one on the spot (I liked them because small springform pans never seem deep enough). Long story short, I ended up ordering one online after coming home and used it for this cake.  I was worried removal might not be as easy as using a springform pan but it worked very well.  I'd definitely use it in the future to make small cheesecakes or to make smaller versions of other cakes that require a springform type pan.