Chocolate cake comes in wide varieties and gateau au chocolat is my go-to ultimate chocolate cake. No frosting, no additional creme, just the most pure form of a chocolate cake.

Gateau au chocolat means chocolate cake in French; ‘gateau’ is to ‘cake’ as ‘chocolat’ is to ‘chocolate’. This chocolate cake recipe goes all the way back to the 18th century and has been a staple in French desserts till this day.

Gateau au chocolat only has 5 ingredients, although there are many variations out there with more added ingredients, we’re going back to the basics here, so this is a great recipe to impress as beginners. For anyone who is still new to baking, will surely love how easy this recipe is.

How To Make Gateau Au Chocolat

The base of this gateau au chocolat is going to be your eggs, there are no other leavening agents but the eggs. And the flavour would be none other than of course, chocolate, but we’re going to use the richest of dark chocolate. In this recipe, I used 70% dark couverture chocolate, which will give the deepest chocolate flavour but not too overpowering with bitterness. It’s a great balance between bitter and sweet. If you don’t really like to go bitter, you can try to use somewhere around 50-60% dark couverture chocolate.

The method to make this classic gateau au chocolat is very simple. You will first melt together your solid ingredients which are dark chocolate (or the chocolate of your choosing) with some unsalted butter. Then you will separate your eggs from the whites and yolks with sugars and whisk both until they are nice and fluffy. You will then add the dry ingredients (the flour) and wet ingredients (melted butter and chocolate) into the yolk mixture. After that, slowly fold in your meringue and pour the batter into a 12cm round cake pan. And now you’ve made one of the most decadent desserts in the culinary world!

The Best Gateau Au Chocolat

The great thing about gateau au chocolat is that you can eat it two ways: cold or hot. When fresh out of the oven, it will have this crispy top layer and warm and gooey centre in the inside. Similar to a chocolate lava cake but a bit more firm. And when you eat this cold, it will be more fudgy and dense, similar to a fudgy brownie. Adding a sprinkle of powdered sugar will add a bit more sweetness to balance out the bitterness of the chocolate from the cake.

Gateau Au Chocolat is a simple dessert that can fully satisfy your chocolate cravings. Anyone can make it, it’s that easy! So why don’t we go on ahead and get started, shall we?

Some tips that might be useful:

• You can always substitute the type of chocolate to your preference. For someone who doesn’t like their chocolate to be too bitter, I would suggest using around 50%-60% dark chocolate.
• It is optional to dust with powdered sugar at the end and you can substitute for other toppings including whipped cream frosting, vanilla ice cream, etc. So that the gateau au chocolat itself is the star of the dish.