Hazelnut and Chocolate Cake

Luckily for me, Piemonte is graced with an abundance of one of my favorite nuts - hazelnuts.  This gave me the opportunity to make a torta della nocciola, or a hazelnut cake.  To make this dessert even more delicious, I found a recipe for a hazelnut and chocolate cake, or torta della nocciola e del cioccolato.  The combination of hazelnut and chocolate is amazing.  I'm sure I'm not the only one who likes to sit down with a tub of nutella (and what I buy really can be called a tub), a spoon, and a loaf of bread. 

Torta della Nocciola e del Cioccolato

Adapted from Diana's Desserts

Ingredients:

8 oz hazelnuts

8 oz bittersweet chocolate

8 eggs, separated into yolks and whites

1/2 cup superfine sugar

Confectioners' sugar, melted chocolate, etc. for decoration

Process:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Roast and peel the hazelnuts. Put hazelnuts on a shallow pan and put in a 350 degree oven for 10 minutes or until the skin begins to crack.  Working with a few nuts at a time, rub with a kitchen cloth to remove skin.  If little pieces of skin stay on, don't worry too much about it. It won't kill you or ruin the cake!
3. Leave oven at 350 degrees. Butter a 10x2 inch round cake pan.
4. In a food processor, pulse the hazelnuts.  Put in a bowl.  Next, pulse the chocolate.  Combine with hazelnuts.
5. In a mixing bowl, combine the egg yolks with 1/4 cup of superfine sugar.  Beat until light and ribbony.
6. In a separate mixing bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.  Slowly add the other 1/4 cup sugar, and beat until stiff peaks form.
7. Fold the chocolate and nuts into the egg yolks.  Gently fold the egg whites into the yolk mixture.
8. Fill the cake pan 2/3 full. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes.  Let cool. 
9. Sprinkle with sugar, chocolate or whatever else you would like to decorate it with!

 

When I made this cake, I only had a 9 x 1 1/2 inch cake pan in my house, so I ended up with some batter left over. I filled up a muffin tin, and made some hazelnut and chocolate muffins as well!  Cook the muffins at 350 degrees for 17-20 minutes.

Ryan's rating of torta della nocciola e del cioccolato - 3.5 if you don't like hazelnuts (which he doesn't. Inconceivable.) and 4.5 if you do (which, as I've already mentioned at least 10 times, I do!). 

Comments

[Jeanne]

Whoa. Well aren't you fancy. I need to try this once I get a food processor.

P.S. "I do not think it means what you think it means..."

[Sue]

You could try just chopping up the hazelnuts and chocolate with a good knife too. The hazelnuts don't have to be super fine; you could just do a rough chop and you would just have bigger chucks of hazelnut in your cake!

[Jeanne]

Good deal. I wasn't sure if that would effect the outcome. Sounds like a plan.