Chocolate Hazelnut Torte

* Exported from MasterCook *

Chocolate Hazelnut Torte

Recipe By : Christiane Roehler <croehler@ssc.sas.upenn.edu>
Serving Size : 1 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories : Cakes

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
200 grams butter -- (2 sticks minus 1
1/2 Tbl )
125 grams flour -- (4 1/2 oz)
125 grams ground hazelnuts
200 grams sugar -- (7 oz)
4 eggs
3 teaspoons cacao
100 grams chocolate -- (4 oz) chopped*
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 teaspoons rum
3 teaspoons cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 can sour cherries**

* You will have chop the chocolate by hand. Do not reduce the chocolate to a
floury consistency. The size should be that of small peas. You want to have
small pieces of chocolate in your cake after it baked. You can use chocolate
morsels instead. But the quality of the cake improves if you use a good
quality chocolate and not the regular chocolate morsels. Match the quality of
your chocolate with the quality of your cacao.
** I think cherries preserved in light sirup are best, but you can use
whatever you can find. Sour cherries give a much more intense flavour than
sweet cherries. You want about 300 g of cherries, but if you have a bit more
or less it does not really matter. The only thing is, the cherries are
largely responsible for the nice moisture of the cake.
Cream butter with the sugar. Add eggs, one by one. Add the vanilla. Mix
flour, hazelnuts, baking powder and add. Add rum, cinamon and cacao. (Hints
for adding the cacao: If you use a machine, just add it here. If you do the
cake by hand, you might want to reserve a bit of the sugar and mix it with
the cacao to reduce the amount of lumps you have. Or mix the cacao with the
other dry ingredients.) Fold in the chocolate. Carefully fold in the drained
cherries. Put dough in well buttered form. You might consider dusting the
form with whatever you use for this. I use a 26 cm (10 in) springform with
the insert that makes a hole in the middle of the cake. This makes a nicely
sized if a bit flat cake. If you want to use the flat insert, 1 1/2 times the
recipe should be about right. Bake in preheated oven at 350 F for 50 to 65
minutes. Do not overbake, one of the nice features of this cake is its
moisture. Test with a wooden stick or a clean knife for doneness. If it
comes out clean after you put it in the center of cake, the cake is done. But
do not be deceived by the moisture of the cherries or the melted chocolate,
so try two or three different spots, cleaning the knife or wooden stick after
each use. I do not know why, but the baking time of this cake can vary
considerably from oven to oven, and it also will depend on what form and
overall quantity you use. Possible substitutions: Use walnuts instead of
hazelnuts. Decorate cake with confectioner's sugar, or a chocolate glaze,
and/ or whole nuts.




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