FAY'S SIMPLE SACHERTORTE

As a thank you to our lovely friends for generously giving us lots and lots of baby stuff, my husband Pascal and I wanted to cook them a special supper on Saturday night. It was truffle based and very cheesy but to round it off, we had to have some chocolate too…….obviously! For pudding I decided to try this Sachertorte from Fay Ripley's second cookbook - I was a little apprehensive as I had never cooked it before but it seemed simple enough and it took around an hour plus cooling time.

Ingredients for 8-10 people:

200g dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids), broken up
160g butter, softened
120g caster sugar
4 large free range eggs, separated 
200g ground almonds

Topping
100g dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids), broken up
50g butter
3 heaped tbsp apricot jam

Preheat the oven to 150 C (fan), 170 C, gas mark 3 and line the base of the cake tin with baking parchment. Your tin needs to be a spring form cake tin around 20-22cm.

Melt the chocolate in a glass bowl set over simmering water, then set aside to cool (my bowl was actually china)!

Using an electric whisk, cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add the egg yolks, melted chocolate and ground almonds and mix until evenly combined.

In the separate bowl, whisk the egg whites with an electric whisk until soft peaks form and then carefully fold into the cake mix. This took longer than I expected and I thought it would never combine but it did (patience is a virtue)! Pop into the cake tin and then bake for 35 minutes. Leave in the tin to cool completely.

For the topping, melt the chocolate and butter in a glass bowl over a pan of simmering water like before and leave to cool slightly.

Carefully remove the cake from it's tin and spread the three tablespoons of apricot jam over the top. Dribble the warm chocolate topping over the cake, letting it drip down the sides and leave it to set. Serve at room temperature on it's own or with a dollop of cream or ice cream.

I will admit I was a little unsure of this recipe as I don't really like dark chocolate and I couldn't understand how the apricot jam fitted in but I was very pleasantly surprised - it definitely all works. The sachertorte was invented in Vienna in 1832 and is one of Vienna's culinary specialities - it even has it's own day - 5th December. After making this, I can see why it is such a hit. I loved it with the vanilla ice cream.  A great dinner party recipe as you can make it the day before and you can even freeze the base (not the topping). I have enjoyed polishing off the leftovers….I am certainly making the most of eating for two!

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