Torta Alla Gianduia

I FINALLY RECEIVED MY KITCHENAID! YAYAYAY

Yesterday my father picked up my beautiful candy apple red kitchenaid for my birthday. Although my birthday is the 31st of August I was allowed to have an extra extra early birthday present for the fact that like myself, my parents are addicted to food and couldn't deprive themselves of all the sweets that I would be churning out.

Being extremely sentimental, I decided that I HAD to make something uber special that I would remember forever. After browsing through every cook book I own (I probably own close to 40) I stumbled upon my favourite, How To Be A Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson. A book that I hardly ever use surprisingly even though its a favourite. I think mainly because of the amount of sugary goodness in all of her recipes. Not exactly for the health conscious.

I finally decided on the Torta Alla Gianduia. Consisting of chocolate and nuts, my two favourite things.

Fairly simple to make and much like any torte I was quite pleased with how it turned out and the beautiful flavour it had. Extremely rich, a beautiful textured cake and the ganache complemented it very well. You don't need much and coming from me that is saying something.

I decided to decorate mine a little differently as well. Nigella, in her variation, toasted the hazelnuts then scattered them on top. In attempt to make mine look a little more posh, i roughly chopped them and made a circular pattern with some in the middle.




Recipe: Torta Alla Gianduia by Nigella Lawson

Cake:
6 large eggs, separated
pinch of salt
125g soft unsalted butter
400g Nutella
1 tablespoon frangelico, rum or water
100g ground hazelnuts
100g dark chocolate melted

Icing:
100g hazelnuts
125ml double cream
1 tablespoon frangelico, rum or water
125g dark chocolate

Butter and line with grease proof paper a 23cm spring form pan and preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

In a large bowl whisk eggs whites and salt until stiff but not dry.

In a separate bowl beat butter and nutella together. Add frangelico (or whatever you are using), egg yolks, and ground hazelnuts. Fold in cooled, melted chocolate, then add egg whites in 4 batches gentling folding all together.

Pour into prepared tin and cook for 40 minutes or until the cakes beginning to come away at the sides, then let cool on a rack.

Toast hazelnuts in a dry frying pan until the aroma wafts upwards and the nuts are golden brown in parts, making sure you keep shaking the pan so they do not burn. Transfer to a plate then let cool and roughly chop.

In a heavy bottomed saucepan, add the cream, liqueur and chopped chocolate and heat gently. Once the chocolate has melted, take the pan off the heat and whisk until all lumps are remove. Refrigerate until mixture slightly thickens then ice the top of the cake. Garnish cake with hazelnuts and serve.

NOTE: I found it VERY hard to remove cake from spring form tin without it mildly splitting. I found it sort of 'glued' itself back together with the ganache.