Torta Caprese
This Tasty little thing from the island of Capri is as easy as it is delicious. Made with chocolate and ground almonds and no flour! your gluten free friends will thank you. I served this with rhubarb and mascarpone because I just bloody love rhubarb but you could serve it with just whipped cream, mascarpone, ice-cream or all three! This recipe calls for 2 types of chocolate as I love the milky-ness from the milk chocolate to mallow out the dark but you could use the full weight of one or the other. When folding the ground almonds, cocoa and melted chocolate into the egg mixture be sure to do so gently so you don’t knock too much air out of your mixture. That beaut air you will create in the eggs is where the cake gets its lift! Only other thing I would say is to use good quality coca powder and chocolate! I use Equagold premium Dutch coca and Whittaker’s chocolate.
Ingredients
(serves 10-12)
Torta Caprese
170g butter, diced 2cm
120g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
120g milk chocolate, roughly chopped
6 medium eggs
3/4 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 & 1/4 cup almond meal or ground almonds
2 Tbsp dark cocoa powder plus more for dusting.
To Serve
400g rhubarb
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup water
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Mascarpone, Ice cream or whipped cream
Prep It
Preheat oven to 180°C.
Grease and line a 25cm springform cake tin and set aside.
Chop butter and both chocolate and place in a large heat-proof bowl. Grab a pot that your bowl of chocolate/butter can sit nicely on without it going to deep. Fill your pot about one third of the way with hot water and place the bowl with chocolate/butter on top. Place on a medium heat and bring to a simmer. Stir occasionally, until chocolate and butter have fully melted. Mix well and set aside to cool.
Beat eggs, vanilla and both sugars in a large bowl, until pale, thick and doubled in size, about 4 minutes. Add ground almonds and cocoa powder to egg mixture and carefully fold in. Add chocolate butter mixture and carefully fold this in to, until mixture is well combined.
Bake It
Pour mixture into your prepared cake tin and bake in the middle of the oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until a skewer inserted comes out clean. If your cake gets to dark on top you can reduce the oven temperature a little or cover with a piece of tin foil.
Meanwhile,
Give your rhubarb a good wash and slice into approx. 3cm lengths. Place in a medium baking dish or tray with a lip and sprinkle over brown sugar. Drizzle over water measure and vanilla and cover with a piece of baking paper that fits the tray. When your cake comes out of the oven to cool cook rhubarb at the same temp, 180°C for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes remove from oven, remove paper and return to oven to cook for a further 3-5 minutes (depending on thickness) or until tender. The rhubarb will continue to cook when removed from the oven so don’t over do it. It will still taste goof if you over cook it but won’t look as pretty. Allow rhubarb to cool and be sure to keep the syrup that forms!
Eat It!
Serve your torta with rhubarb on the side and a big fat dollop of mascarone. Drizzle over any rhubarb juice and dust with cocoa powder.