Little Miss Hoover woke up this morning with one thing in mind - chocolate! Well if truth be told she has had chocolate on the brain for the last twenty one days as she has been counting down the days until Christmas with the help of her chocolate Advent Calendar.  I don't know if it's just me, but I am finding it more and more difficult as the years go by to find simple, traditional nativity Advent Calendars. Thank goodness for Jacquot Chocolatiers as they seem to have resisted the urge to bow to popular culture in choosing not to produce ridiculous Barbie, Bratz, Ben 10 or Spiderman Advent calendars that have nothing to do with a manger in Bethlehem.

Anyway - back on to chocolate and all things Christmas. Little Miss Hoover asked if we could put on our aprons and do some baking today. When I asked her what she wanted to bake she looked at me and replied 'chocolate torte of course'. History has proven that it is utterly futile arguing with a three year old so chocolate torte we did make. That plus the fact that I love anything that calls for huge amounts of butter and chocolate to be 'melted over a slow heat until creamy'!


I know there is probably a plethora of different recipes out there for Chocolate Torte, but this is my trusty, fool proof, works every time, thank you Lorenza, recipe. And it goes without saying that if you use inferior chocolate your end result will be ordinary. But if you want to make an exquisite Torta di Ciccolato fit for a king, then use a chocolate with no less than a 75% level of cocoa.

Torta di Ciccolato - Chocolate Cake

Recipe source - Italy Today the Beautiful Cookbook (1997)

This rather dense cake goes well with a dollop of pure double cream or mascarpone. I love to serve it with some good quality vanilla bean ice cream and fresh strawberries that have been sitting in a wash of orange blossom water and a sprinkle of castor sugar.
 

Ingredients

1 tablespoon unsalted butter for preparing your spring form pan

5 organic egg yolks

1 cup of castor sugar

½ cup plain flour

1 tsp of baking powder

150 grams bitter chocolate

150 grams unsalted butter

2 egg whites


Method

1. Preheat oven to 350 F / 180 C/ Gas mark 4 and butter a 9 inch or 21cm spring form pan.

2. Combine eggs yolks and sugar in a bowl and beat until light and creamy.

3. Combine chocolate and butter together in a bowl and place bowl on top of a saucepan of boiling water, careful not to get any water into the mixture as the chocolate will seize. Once creamy, stir the melted chocolate and butter into the egg-flour mixture.

4. In a separate bowl whisk egg whites until soft peaks form. Stir about a third of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture to lighten it. Then gently fold the remaining egg whites until no white streaks remain, being careful not to over mix. Pour the mixture into the prepared spring form pan.

5. Bake for about 50 minutes. Remove from the oven and release and remove the pan sides. Slide carefully onto a serving platter and allow to cool before serving.

6. We often dust the cake with a light sprinkling of icing sugar before serving it with a huge dollop of pure double cream or good vanilla bean ice cream.