Italian Flourless Chocolate Torte (Torta Al Ciocolato)
Updated Feb 24, 2025, Published Oct 27, 2021
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Why You’ll Love This Recipe
This soft Italian chocolate torte recipe is not too sweet and decadent with a deep chocolate flavor. The best part? It is an easy one bowl recipe, win-win! Enjoy it for breakfast, snack, or add whipped cream and berries and serve it for dessert.

You will also love these easy and simple cakes Easy Italian Pear Cake (Torta di Pere) , Italian Apple Cake, Italian Crumble Cake Pastry Cream Filling, and my panettone recipe.
Truth- I eat chocolate every single day. I am eating a piece of chocolate as I type this post- I just can’t resist!
I prefer dark chocolate, but I’m not too picky when it is good-quality chocolate!
This cake is a true representation of Italian cakes- simple ingredients, perfectly sweet, and rich in flavor. I know you will love it as much as we do!
You will also love these chocolate recipes – Olive Oil Chocolate Cake and Choco Lava Cake!

Simple Ingredients
- Cacao powder
- Flour
- Eggs
- Sugar
- Butter
- Yogurt
- Bittersweet or unsweetened chocolate
- Baking Powder
- Salt
- Powdered Sugar for dusting

Try this orange olive oil cake or this One Bowl Olive Oil Cake.
Recommended Equipment
The traditional way to make this cake is in a round cake pan or springform pan lined with parchment paper. Lining the pan with parchment paper gives it those imperfect crimp edges that remind me of any cake that comes out of my mamas oven. You can certainly use cooking spray in a round pan.
How To Make Chocolate Torte


Left corner to bottom right-> mix chocolate with other wet ingredients. Sift in dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt, and cacao powder), mix to incorporate until smooth batter. Place the chocolate mixture in the prepared round baking pan and bake!

Set aside to cool before serving. With a few simple steps and only one bowl, you are on your way to enjoy the most delicious Italian flourless chocolate torte cake!
FAQs
Yogurt adds moisture and fat in a cake batter, making the cake moist. A cake baked with yogurt is never dry. It’s always so soft, moist and absolutely delicious.
Another, aspect to adding yogurt in cakes is the acidity of the yogurt works with the baking powder to leaven the cake and make it extra tall and fluffy. You won’t taste the yogurt at all in the cake! It simple serves as a secret weapon to add moistness and help your cake rise!
Fat dairy products are often filled with “junk” to stabilize the texture. As long as the brand of non fat yogurt doesn’t have any fillers it will work fine. One brand I recommend is Chobani non fat yogurt as an alternative.
Absolutely! You will use the same amount of oil as the melted butter. The cake will have a different flavor, and be a little lighter in the crumb. Try olive oil for a deep and rich flavor! If you prefer to keep it neutral use a non flavor oil such as, avocado oil.
I’ve had quite a few readers ask about using gluten-free flour in this Lemon Yogurt Loaf Recipe. I’ve only made the recipe as written, but readers have reported success using either Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free Flour or Cup4Cup gluten-free flour.
I can’t say for sure if using a gluten-free flour will work, but this is what readers have recommended!
UNDER BAKED
The most common reason why cakes sink in the middle is that they’re under baked.
If a cake isn’t fully baked through, the center doesn’t have a chance to set and it will sink. This creates a doughy, dense texture in the center of your cake layer.
TOO MUCH LEAVENING
Too much leavening agent like baking soda or powder can cause a cake to rise too high too quickly. The gas from the leavening agents builds up and escapes before the cake bakes through in the center.
This causes the center to collapse and makes your cake layers sink in the middle. Another reason is- the leaving is expired and the cake couldn’t rise properly.
NOT WEIGHING THE FLOUR
A gram is always a gram, but a cup is not always a cup. When in doubt measuring your ingredients by grams.
OPENING THE OVEN DOOR
If the oven door is opened and slammed after it’s opened, it can cause partially baked cakes to sink in the middle. If the center isn’t set as the oven door is slammed, it can collapse and won’t be able to rise up properly again.
Opening the oven door will also cause a draft and decrease in temperature in the inside of the oven.
Italian Cakes you will also enjoy…
Easy Almond Sponge Cake with Italian Cream
Vanilla Cake Roll with Cream and Berries
Heavenly Angel Food Cake (Strawberries and Cream
LEMON YOGURT LOAF CAKE (blueberries)
Serve with this Chocolate pastry cream for an extra burst of chocolate!

Timeless and sensational this chocolate torte cake is simple to make and easy to love. You will run to make this one bowl soft Italian chocolate cake whenever you get a chocolate craving!
Chocolate Torte Recipe

Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, 240 g
- 3 teaspoons baking powder, 14 g
- 3 tablespoons cacao or unsweetened cocoa powder, 21 g
- ¾ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 cup granulated sugar, 200 g
- 1 cup plain whole milk yogurt , 245 g, or Greek yogurt
- ½ cup butter, 113 g, melted and cooled
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Confectioner sugar for dusting
- ½ cup bittersweet baking chocolate or semisweet chocolate chips, melted until smooth and cooled slightly
Instructions
- Line a 9.5 inch round baking pan with parchment paper, or spray with cooking spray. Preheat oven at 350 degrees F
- In a large mixing bowl, with an electric mixer, whip the sugar and eggs until you obtain a creamy and fluffy texture. About 5-8 minutes.
- Stir in the yogurt, butter, melted chocolate and vanilla extract. Use a fork or spatula to combine until smooth (not the electric mixer)
- Sift in the dry ingredients to the bowl of wet ingredients: flour, cacao or cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt. Stir gently until well combined.
- Place the batter into the prepared pan.
- Bake 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. If the cake starts to brown too much on top tent with the top with foil during the last 10 minutes of cooking.
- Cool and dust cake with confectioner sugar. If desired, serve with freshly whipped cream. Enjoy!
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
This cake is so light, not too sweet, absolute heaven! I love every recipe that I make from this website so much, you can tell how much time and passion went into every single recipe. I was going to share this cake with others but ended up eating it just with my little family lol it was too good!
So happy you love it! It is easy and delicious.
We love all three of your torte, but this one probably takes the cake, so to speak! Italians are the best at sweet but not too sweet! 🙂
I am happy you loved it! It’s great for chocolate lovers!