Recipe by Jo Casamento
Our resident Italian cook extraordinaire Jo, shares her family’s recipe for the oh so decadent and totally gluten free (hoorah!) Torta Caprese!
Make this today!
Ingredients:
100ml Extra Virgin olive oil
200g good quality dark chocolate, chopped
1 cup (250g) almond meal (also lovely with hazelnut meal – call it a Baci cake!)
2 tablespoons good quality cocoa powder + extra to sift over for serving
260g caster sugar
6 eggs
1 tablespoon amaretto liqueur (or frangelico if making the hazelnut version)
Method:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
Can be made into individual serves (in this case 6) or if making into a larger cake cook in an 8” cake tin baked at 160 degrees Celcius.
Grease and flour either 6 x 1 cup capacity ramekins or an 8” springform cake tin. It’s sometimes easier to line with baking paper in the tin. Doesn’t work so well for the ramekins or muffin tins but you can make in patty pan papers and then remove and turn upside down for serving. Makes it much easier to get them out as they definitely don’t stick! You could also try these in muffin tins but only fill 2/3 full and drop cooking time back to 20-25 mins.
Place oil and chocolate in a pan over simmering water to melt together. Can also do this in the microwave but only melt 30 seconds at a time & stir after each 30 seconds so the chocolate doesn’t burn.
Sift together the almond meal, cocoa powder into a large bowl.
With a hand whisk or stand mixer, whisk together the eggs, sugar and amaretto until thick and pale (about 5 minutes)
Gently fold the melted chocolate mixture and sifted almond meal mix into the whisked eggs until smooth – don’t overmix!
Fill ramekins or muffin tins to 2/3 full & bake for approx 30 mins (20-25 for muffin tins & 40-45 mins for 8” springform) and bake until cake skewer comes out with a few moist crumbs. Overcooking will dry out the cake too much! For serving, invert cakes onto plates or a platter and dust with a little cocoa, if you’re not a fan of cocoa alone, stencil some icing sugar over as well. Serve warm with cream or ice cream!
Serve with whipped cream or ice cream.
