It's 2017 and I've had my break from
blogging. Lots of new and exciting things have happened in my life over the
last few months and all of them bring a new food idea, recipes or tips, so
watch this space.
To start my year, I've decided to share
my Sachertorte recipe. Most recipes around this time of year are healthy, 'new
year, new me', kind of thing... But we all know towards the end of 'Dry
January', a few weeks into our 'Couch to 5k' app, or the realisation that you
definitely didn't need to get the 12-month contract at the gym, we all need a
pick me up!
So to celebrate achieving our new year’s
resolutions (or commiserate...), there's no better way than this celebration
cake. For those being healthy, it does have apricot jam, strawberries and
raspberries in it, so I suppose that's 3 of your 5 a day?
This isn't the easiest of bakes, it
does require following the instructions to a tee, but it is totally worth it.
Ingredients
For the cake
- 150g good quality plain
chocolate (at least 75% cocoa)
- 150g unsalted butter
- 110g caster sugar
- 1/2tsp vanilla bean paste (1tsp for extract, 1 pod for seeds)
- 5 large eggs, separated
- 90g ground almonds
- 50g plain flour sieved
- 1tsp good quality cocoa powder, sieved
For the topping
- 4tbsp smooth apricot jam
- 150g good quality plain chocolate
- 200ml double cream
To decorate
- white chocolate shards (see bottom of post for details)
- 6 washed strawberries, halved and tops removed
- handful of washed raspberries
- 100g milk chocolate, finely grated and stored in the fridge until
needed (tips for this below)
Method
For the cake
- Preheat the oven to 180c/Gas 4. Grease a 9-10inch, round cake tin
and line the base with greaseproof paper.
- Melt the chocolate by breaking into pieces and melting slowing in a
bowl set over a pan of hot water, stirring frequently.
- Once melted, take the chocolate off the heat and allow to cool.
- Whilst the chocolate is cooling, place the butter in a bowl and
soften, gradually add the sugar until the mixture is well 'creamed' or
light and fluffy.
- Add the cooled chocolate to the butter mixture, and beat again.
- Add the 5 egg yolks, vanilla bean paste and beat well.
- Now add the ground almonds, flour and cocoa, and fold until well
combined.
- In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until they are stiff but
not dry (this means peaks are stiff but the mixture is loose when moving
around the bowl).
- Add a couple of spoonful's of the egg white to the chocolate mixture
and beat vigorously.
- Lastly, add the rest of the egg white and gently fold into the
chocolate mixture.
- Pour the mixture in the tin, level and leave to one side for ten
minutes to ensure the mixture spreads evenly.
- Place in the oven for 55-60 minutes, or alternatively, until well
risen at the top and springy when pressed gently.
- Once baked, leave to cool in the tin for around 5-10 minutes, but
try and turn out whilst it's still warm. Remove the greaseproof paper and
leave on a wire rack to cool completely.
To top your cake
- Heat the jam until thin and runny. Using a pastry brush, brush the
jam mixture evenly and generously over the cake.
- Leave for at least 15 minutes, or until the jam has hardened
slightly on the cake.
- Break the plain chocolate into pieces.
- Heat the cream until very hot, but not boiling. Remove from the
heat and add the chocolate.
- Stir continuously until the chocolate has melted.
- Allow to cool and thicken (it should be the consistency of a thick
chocolate sauce)
- Pour the entire mixture slowly onto the centre of the cake, the
icing should spread by itself to the edges and down the sides of the cake
without a need to spread it (don't worry if the sides aren't completely
covered, just the top).
To decorate
- Using a sharp knife, cut one slice from your Sachertorte and put to
one side.
- Place white chocolate shards all around the sides of the Sachertorte.
- Place your halved strawberries on the top of your Sachertorte, from
where you cut your slice.
- Fill the gap from your slice, with raspberries.
- Sprinkle the grated milk chocolate over the cake.
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| Soph's Seriously Sexy Sachertorte ©sophiewhelan'sfoodblog |
Tips, tricks and hints
As explained already, there are lots of
difficult elements to this recipe, but I've got some handy pointers, to help
you make it successfully;
- First of all, I would recommend buying your shards - not only is
tempering chocolate difficult, but even more notoriously difficult, is
tempering white chocolate. It's a lot of time and effort for a purely
decorative element for a cake. I did make mine, and I can assure you that
there was a minimal difference other than how big/little I made my shards,
compared to shop bought ones. If you want to have a go yourself, check out
this link: http://goodfood.uktv.co.uk/recipe/chocolate-shards/
- For brushing the apricot jam, I would invest in a silicone pastry
brush. These brushes are generally better to use as they clean well, and
you don't lose the fibres from the brush like you do with the traditional
brushes.
- Apricot jam is traditionally used in this recipe as it alters the
flavour the least, however, any other smooth jam would work in the same
way.
- When heating the cream, if you're not confident about whether it's
hot enough, invest in a cooking thermometer - they are often marked with
things such as "just before boiling point", for example.
- When taking your slice from the Sachertorte, make the first cut and
then clean your knife and make the second cut - this will ensure you have
a clean line in the icing from slicing.
- Lastly, a spring form cake tin will be your best friend in your recipe, I made it twice, first time in a standard tin, the bake was great but the cake was cracked from trying to get it out of my tin, the second time was perfect when I used the spring form cake tin!