*  Exported from  MasterCook  *

                        Chocolate Hazelnut Torte

Recipe By     : Christiane Roehler <[email protected]>
Serving Size  : 1    Preparation Time :0:00
Categories    : Cakes

 Amount  Measure       Ingredient -- Preparation Method
--------  ------------  --------------------------------
200      g             Butter (1 c minus 1-1/2 tb)
125      g             Flour (4-1/2 oz)
125      g             Hazelnuts -- ground
200      g             Sugar (7 oz)
  4                    Eggs
  3      ts            Cacao
100      g             Chocolate (4 oz) -- chopped *
  1      ts            Vanilla extract
  3      ts            Rum
  3      ts            Cinnamon
  1 1/2  ts            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 bakes. 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 syrup 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, cinnamon, 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") 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.

Variations:

Use walnuts instead of hazelnuts.

Decorate cake with confectioner's sugar, or a chocolate glaze, and/or
whole nuts.


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