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Chocolate torte

Your cut-out-and-keep guide to the fundamentals of cooking

If you’re going to go for chocolate indulgence for a special occasion, then this is the best kind of thing to make. It’s quick and easy to prepare, and you’d have most of the ingredients at home already. Compared to a cake, a torte is much more dense. It doesn’t have the same crumb as a cake, but it’s not gooey, either. It’s just very rich and dense. One key way in which a torte is different from a cake is that it uses no raising agent. There is no baking powder: you are getting all the rise from the air you put into the eggs during the whisking. That’s why you must be very careful to fold in the flour and other ingredients — mixing or stirring will knock out all of the air that you’ve created and there will be no lift at all, just something really flat and heavy. When people see ‘fold’ in a recipe, they can feel unsure as to what that means. It’s very easy to do, but you have to be careful and slow. If you get a spatula or a big metal spoon, go to the centre of your bowl, insert it straight down to the bottom and then lift and fold it over. You repeat this action until all of the ingredients are folded through. That way, you will keep the air that will make the torte rise. It’s very important not to overcook a torte. You aren’t looking for a melting middle, so when you insert a skewer at the end of the cooking time, it should come out clean but still wet. If you overcook a cake, it will be dry and crumbly, but still edible. If you overcook a torte, it’s horribly chewy, and all of that lovely chocolate denseness will be gone. Serves 8.

You will need:

200g (7oz) unsalted butter, plus a little extra for greasing the tin 200g (7oz) 70pc cocoa dark chocolate, chopped 4 large eggs 200g (7oz) golden caster sugar 50g (1¾oz) plain flour 50g (1¾oz) ground almonds A pinch of salt Cocoa powder, for dusting

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180°C, 360°F, Gas 4. Butter and line the base and sides of a 23cm (9in) springform or loose-bottomed cake tin. Put the unsalted butter and the chopped dark chocolate into a bowl over a pot of hot water and gently allow them to melt together, making sure that the hot water does not touch the bowl. Meanwhile, beat the eggs and the golden caster sugar together in another bowl, using an electric whisk, for 5 minutes until the mixture turns pale in colour. Once the melted butter and chocolate mixture has cooled slightly, pour it into the whisked eggs and caster sugar mixture, folding it in carefully. In a bowl or a jug, mix the plain flour, the ground almonds and the pinch of salt together and fold these ingredients into the melted butter, chocolate, whisked eggs and caster sugar mixture until the torte mixture is smooth. Spoon everything into the prepared tin and bake the torte in the preheated oven for 35–40 minutes until it is evenly set with a slight crust on top. A skewer inserted into the torte should come out clean. Leave the cake to cool a bit — when it is still warm, release it from the tin. Dust it with the cocoa powder, then cut into wedges.