Let us all forget last week. Let’s do that with good, entirely un-vegetable related, chocolate torte. I’ve stolen this recipe from Rachel Allen. She calls it a cake. I don’t believe it is. It has no flour (yeah, that’s right, it’s inadvertently gluten free) and ground almonds in its place. To me that’s a torte. Secondly, I can’t really be dealing with spirits in my tortes and so I left the whiskey out of the glaze.

Anyway. Who cares about anything other than my new house? No one. Because my house is the bees goddam knees. My arms are hanging off from painting and the structural engineer pretty much laughed at me when I told him of my ideas and then of the budget, but I couldn’t give a shag. I may have a fox living in my garden and I get to choose the colours for everything; the floors, walls, doors, counter-tops, everything. This makes me unspeakably happy.

I tried to convince sister #5 that I’m a longterm optimist. She couldn’t agree less. I stand by my self diagnosis though. Life is good. 

On that cheery note let’s discuss the cake. It is remarkably easy to make. Lining the tin is probably the most taxing element. The whole process scarcely even calls for any equipment fancier than a wooden spoon. These are the cakes I like the best. Minimum effort, some passive baking time and then a whole heap of deliciousness. Good ratios.

Oven temperature 170 Celsius

Torte:

Dark chocolate                  250g

Butter                                   210g

Caster sugar                       250g

Eggs                                       5

Ground almonds              75g

Glaze:

Milk chocolate                  100g

Dark chocolate                 100g

Milk                                     50ml

Butter                                 75g

Preheat the oven and line a 23cm round tin with baking parchment, not just butter and flour, because it’s a fierce liquidy batter.

Now break the chocolate into the biggest heatproof bowl you possess. On top of that add in the butter (preferably cut into smallish pieces if you have that degree of patience) and the sugar.

Place this big bowl of potential on top of a pan of simmering water and let it all melt gently together. When I did this the last time it took almost 15mins because I had the heat quite low and I was making dinner at the same time but it probably won’t take you that long.

When it has melted, take the bowl off the pan of water and let it cool down for a few minutes before beating the eggs in with a wooden spoon, one at a time.

After all the eggs are in stir in the almonds and then poor the whole lot into the prepared tin.

All in all it takes about 35 – 40mins to cook. Don’t forget that this fella is a torte so there’ll be now springy top or clean skewer. This time you want the center to have just set.

When you’re happy it’s cooked remove it from the oven and leave it to cool in its tin whilst you whip up the glaze.

Put all the glaze ingredients into another heatproof bowl and pop it on a pan of simmering water. Once it’s all smoothly melted it’s done.

Remove the cooled cake from the tin and place it on a pretty serving plate then empty the entire bowl of glaze onto it, letting it drip down the sides. I chose to decorate the top with some crushed amaretti, because they are always delicious, and some red fruits.