As bakers reading this already know, a torte is a flourless cake.
We've substituted ground almonds for wheat flour, and are using arbequina extra virgin olive oil instead of butter for this recipe. The texture is moist, tender, and somewhat indulgent. The cake itself is not too sweet, which is how we like it. A ganache for finishing is plenty sweet, and if you attempt a mirror glaze...well, that's once again sweeter still.
We decorated the top with some simple chocolate stringing and strategically placed some almond praline. No special cake mold was used, just an 8" round which was trimmed into a heart shape.
This recipe is for the cake and ganache only. I'll publish a separate recipe for the mirror glaze tomorrow and link it to this recipe for your reference.
Butter an 8” round cake pan and line the bottom with a cut round of parchment paper. Butter the parchment, too. It’s not necessary to dust the pan with flour. It’s okay if the torte sticks to the sides of the pan as that will keep the sides straight, and you can release the torte after baking by running a butter knife around the edge of the pan.
Mix the almond flour, cocoa powder, espresso powder, and salt in a small bowl and set aside.
Melt the chocolate and olive oil in a double boiler. Don’t let the bottom of the bowl touch the hot water. Remove as soon as the mixture is melted. Stir until smooth and set aside.
In a large electric stand mixing bowl with a whisk attachment add the eggs, sugar and vanilla. Beat just enough to mix well and then place the bowl over a pan of simmering water leaving space between the water and the bowl. Mix by hand continuously until the egg mixture is slightly warm to the touch. Do not let this mixture get hot or the eggs will cook. Remove from the hot water and place the bowl onto the mixer stand and mix on high until the mixture has lightened in color and falls in thick ribbons from the whisk. About 5 minutes.
Fold the melted chocolate followed by the dry ingredients into the eggs mixture. Continue to fold gently stopping as soon as everything is incorporated so you don’t lose volume of the batter.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan.
Bake the torte for about 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out with just a few moist crumbs attached to it.
After removing the torte from the oven allow it to cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Then use a butter knife to release the torte from the side of the pan. Turn the torte out onto a rack and continue to cool.
If you plan to cover this torte with ganache and glaze the following technique will make that easier: Place the torte onto a cardboard cake round cut to fit (or buy cardboard cake rounds to fit the size of cake you want) I cut my own using a heart shape PDF I found on the internet and used a printout of that as a template to cut cardboard and then the torte into a heart shape. Having cardboard under the cake allows you to more easily handle the torte when adding the ganache to the sides of the torte. Place the torte with the cardboard on a metal rack over a plate or sheet pan to catch the dripping chocolate.
For the Ganache
Place the chopped chocolate into a medium size metal bowl.
Heat the cream over medium heat until it starts to steam. DO NOT LET IT COME TO A BOIL. This prevents the resulting ganache from being grainy.
Pour the cream into the bowl of chopped chocolate and let stand for a minute. Stir with a spatula until it is smooth.
Pour the ganache over the torte and use a pastry spatula to quickly spread the ganache over the top torte letting the ganache flow over the sides. If you have the torte on cardboard lift the torte and use the spatula to add more ganache to the sides of the torte. The more you handle the ganache the duller the color looks so try to get the look you want and then leave it alone. If you plan to add the chocolate glaze don’t worry about over handling of the ganache since you will cover it with the glaze. Instead, try to smooth the top and sides as much as possible so the glaze won’t look bumpy. You will need to refrigerate the torte for one hour if you plan to glaze it so the glaze will set fast once it’s poured on.
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