Chocolate Flourless Torte

I am always on the look out for recipes of delicious, quick and easy desserts.

When preparing a dinner party for friends I usually end up underestimating the preparation time for my first two courses. Something to do with guests arriving and my desire to gossip rather than chop. Having a big open-plan kitchen only encourages this! Luckily, I know that the day will be saved by some deliciousness that I already have baking in the oven.

This recipe is pulled from one of my multitudes of Delicious magazines spread over the coffee table (although as I have now swapped to an SBS Feast Magazine subscription there is a bit more variety around the house). Valli Little calls this a torte, but to me it is more of a flourless chocolate cake.

NOTE: this is not something to leave on the bench unattended. My housemates managed to polish this off in less than a day!

Ingredients

• 210g roasted pecans (cooled if you roast them)
• 180g dark chocolate, chopped
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 4 eggs, separated
• 220g butter, melted
• 1 1/2tsp vanilla extract

Method

1. Preheat the over to 170 Celsius and line a medium sized spring form tin. If you want a perfect edge to your cake then grease the pan and dust with flour.
2. Use a food processor to grind pecans and chocolate until finely ground.
3. Beat egg yolks with sugar until thick and pale. Slowly add in butter and vanilla.
4. Stir in pecan-chocolate mixture.
5. Beat egg whites until firm peaks.
6. Whisk a quarter of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture then gently fold-in remaining until combined.
7. Pour into pan and gently shake so that it settles. Make sure not to knock it too hard or you will lose all the air from the egg whites!
8. Bake for 50mins; until the edges start to pull away from the sides of the pan.
9. Cool in the pan. Don't be worried when it collapses - its meant to be quite a dense cake.
10. Dust with cocoa or icing sugar to serve warm with cream.

Glutton