Torta Caprese

A flourless almond and chocolate cake, deliberately damp in the middle.

Egg. Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains egg, dairy (butter).

Ingredients

• 250 g almonds, ground not too finely
• 200 g dark chocolate
• 200 g butter
• 200 g caster sugar
• 5 eggs, separated
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• icing sugar, to dust

Method

1. Grind the almonds with a spoonful of the sugar, leaving some texture. Shop-bought ground almonds work; almond flour, milled to dust, gives a denser and duller cake.
2. Melt the chocolate and butter together and cool slightly.
3. Beat the yolks with two thirds of the sugar until pale, then fold in the chocolate mixture and the almonds.
4. Whisk the whites with the salt and the remaining sugar to SOFT peaks, not stiff, and fold them through in three additions. THERE IS NO FLOUR IN THIS — the whites are the only lift it gets, and over-whisked they collapse in the oven and leave a brick.
5. Bake at 170C in a lined 24 cm tin for 40 to 45 minutes.
6. TAKE IT OUT WHEN A SKEWER COMES OUT WITH DAMP CRUMBS ON IT, not clean. It is meant to stay moist in the middle, and baked until a skewer is dry it is a dry cake.
7. Cool completely in the tin — it is fragile warm — and dust with icing sugar.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Italy · All recipes