A dream come true.

Ever since we purchased our home, I dreamt of having large holiday gatherings where I slave over the stove and make people happy. Finally, over the past year, we've started hosting all of our family holiday dinners and this Easter was no different. What made this holiday celebration even better was the addition of friends to mix of characters that dined and played at our house. Don't you always want to celebrate holidays with your friends? I mean, friends are your chosen family, right? But there's that catch...they always seem to have their own families to tend to.

When you get the chance to celebrate with friends on a holiday, you should reward them with things like my nearly flourless chocolate torte. They didn't even care that it looked a little rustic around the edges.
The babes didn't care that we had fancy desserts though. A family member brought them cookies and oh did they ever take advantage of the Easter sugar rush. They were so ridiculously happy with these cookies that I didn't even feel bad about losing all my principles where child nutrition was concerned. For a day I'll blame the Easter Bunny.Chocolate Decadence
Recipe source: Better Homes and Gardens from about 10 years ago!
1 cup whipping cream
14 oz dark chocolate, chopped
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp orange zest (optional)
6 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
cocoa powder to dust 9 inch springform pan

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

In a small saucepan, add cream, cinnamon, and orange zest and melt chocolate and cream mixture over low heat, stirring until smooth. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly in the pan.

In a mixing bowl, add eggs and sugar and mix on medium speed. Slowly add the flour and increase speed to high. You will continue to mix this on high speed until mixture is thick and light yellow (in my KitchenAid, this takes about 5-7 minutes).

Fold in a small amount of the cooled chocolate mixture to the egg mixture. Fold in the rest of the chocolate mixture until well mixed.

Pour into a well greased, 9 inch springform pan. I typically "flour" the pan with cocoa powder so that you don't get any unsightly white streaks when you remove the cake from the pan.

Bake 50-55 minutes until set. Cool to room temperature before refrigerating. Refrigerate at least 4 hours prior to serving. Dust with powdered sugar if desired.
Slice, serve, and smile.