Flourless Chocolate Cake and Lemon Curd

I tried out a new flourless chocolate cake recipe last weekend. As I may have mentioned, my youngest sister is eating gluten-free these days, so I've been trying some new recipes. Most flourless chocolate cakes are very fudgy and dense - which is delicious but not always what you're looking for in a cake. I bought some Gluten Free Baking Mix but realized later (too late!)that I have to buy Xanthum gum (?) in order to make anything. Anyways, in my travels around the internet, I came across this recipe:

http://www.domesticgoddessadventures.blogspot.com/2010/02/flourless-chocolate-cake-with-white.html

The crumb/texture is more like a regular chocolate cake but is still very moist. I decided to forego the white chocolate whipped cream (not a fan of white chocolate), poured chocolate ganache over the top instead and served with whipped cream and raspberry sauce. I don't think anyone would have guessed the "secret" ingredient if I hadn't spilled the beans.

My other project this week was making lemon curd from scratch. I don't know why it took me so long to try this out; I guess I assumed that it must be difficult since the little jars sell for $5 a pop at the store! Anyway, it's super easy and turned out great! The hardest part was saving it to fill these little bouchees made from store-bought puff pastry and not just eating it straight up with a spoon!

I used the recipe here, with the only substitution being that used vanilla sugar (we were out of regular):

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Lemon-Curd/Detail.aspx?prop31=1

Magazine Monday - Lemon Layer Cake with Lemon Curd and Mascarpone

For my sister's birthday I made this Lemon Layer Cake from the April 2003 edition of Bon Appetit. You can find the recipe here:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Lemon-Layer-Cake-with-Lemon-Curd-and-Mascarpone-107898

I took some short cuts in that I didn't make my own lemon curd (only because I didn't have enough eggs; it looks pretty easy) and I used half cream cheese/half mascarpone to save a little money.

The recipe was pretty easy over all - just a little fiddly. It gave me a chance to work on my egg separating, egg white whipping, and egg white folding skills.

Next time I would make twice the amount of simple syrup to really soak the layers as they were just a little bit drier than I'd like. The cake isn't the star here, anyway - it's all about the delicious, tangy, fluffy frosting/filling.

One other thing - my frosting gun is still broken so I couldn't do any fancy piping. So, the end result was a little rustic but still tasty.