A Nutty Valentine Cake

Nutty: the cake, that is. I had been planning a cake (torte, really) of this sort for over a month now. An idea, over weeks, took shape. Lots of time was spent on comparing different recipes, getting an idea of what it might take to get this cake of mine to do what I wanted, i.e. make thin layers that would grow properly in the oven, hold together while stacking the torte, have great texture and flavor.

Almond Pistachio Torte with Baklava Flavors

My Goals

1. For starters, I wanted to use pistachio flour, or meal. No easy feat, with pistachios. They just do not like to be ground finely. At the beginning, I wanted to use all pistachios, but that just seemed like too much work. I ended up going to half pistachio flour and half almond flour in the proposed recipe, almond flour being more easily obtainable these days. Ultimately . . . I used 2/3 almond flour and 1/3 pistachio flour. There was still plenty of pistachio flavor, so no problem.
2. Last year's Valentine Treat was Cupcakes (see here for that recipe). They had Middle Eastern flavors, with cardamom, pistachios and other things. I wanted something on that same line, but with a different twist. First that it be a cake and made with mainly nuts; in other words a "torte". Second that the flavors be like . . . and all I could think of is Baklava. 

I love Baklava. I have made Walnut Baklava, Walnut/Pecan/Almond Baklava and all Pistachio Baklava. I love them all. But what was it in Baklava that I wanted? Partly it was the nuts. Partly that chewy and sticky quality. Partly it was the spices and flavors.

I had read recently that true Lebanese Baklava has rose water as one of its flavors. I had just purchased new bottles of Nielson-Massey rose water (right) and orange blossom water. This brand's flavors are quite strong. I wanted to use one of these two new flavorings in this cake. I went with rose water. I may have erred on the cautious side, as I cannot really taste this flavor in the finished cake, though it did have nicely complex flavors, so maybe it was a good thing that all the flavors melded so well.

Almond Pistachio Torte with Baklava Flavors

And, OH, did the flavors come out well!

As for the cake itself, I wanted to make at least three and possibly four thin layers to stack. In the spirit of Baklava, I also made a glaze to brush over the layers when they came out of the oven. With Baklava in mind, I mixed water, honey, cinnamon, cloves, lemon peel and a touch of rose water. I hoped that this would also ensure the cake be very moist. And it certainly was. But.

While everything about this cake, flavor-wise, came out perfect, the cake layers puffed and sank in the middle, leaving deep wells. After the glaze, and turning out of pans, I trimmed some of the high edges. The trimmed bits were wet enough that I just slapped them into the center "well" part of the cake and lightly pressed in place. The cake layers held up this way and even sliced neatly. So, while I might have some work to do on making the layers come out right without all this fuss, the end result was still wonderful.

My Grandma's Icing

As for the icing part, I went with an amended version of my Grandma's icing recipe. To tell the truth, I always hated my Grandma's icing. It was the only one she made (in my memory) during my childhood in the 1950s. As a large portion of the icing was shortening, the texture and flavor were just not my thing at all. She had a funny way of making this icing, too, which I will get into in a second. I made her Nut Torta and her Icing recipe a couple of years ago, so I could set it into my website. The cake part was okay, but the icing was just as I remembered: greasy, tasteless and gross. As I thought about it though, I thought maybe substituting butter for the shortening would at least give it flavor. I tried it. It tasted really good, but the texture was funny. It looked almost curdled.

Imagine my surprise - nay, SHOCK! - when in wandering around Pinterest one day I came on a recipe for a "miracle icing", which was, essentially, my Grandma's Icing recipe - with butter instead of shortening!

In reading more as this type of icing recipe seemed to blossom and pop up all over the internet, the main thing is to keep beating the icing until it is smooth and fluffy. If it curdles, it may be too warm, so just chill it for a bit, then keep on beating. I decided to give Grandma's recipe one more try, again with butter. At the end, I added in some honey, in keeping with the Baklava flavors. It came out absolutely perfect. Smooth, creamy, and flavorful. Very rich, but not too sweet.

Almond Pistachio Torte with Baklava Flavors

On Making Pistachio Flour or Meal

I placed ¾ cup of shelled, raw, unsalted pistachios in my food processor and let it run for about 2 minutes. Your processor may work differently, but at this point in mine, the nuts had only begun to stick slightly in the edges, indicating it wanted to start being a nut butter. We do not want nut butter, but meal. I stopped the processor and poured the contents into a sieve with not too fine holes. I had a small amount of meal that would not pass through the sieve. I repeated this process with another ¾ cup of nuts. The result was 1¼ cup of nut meal (that passed through the sieve) and about ½ cup left over for decorating the top of the cake.

Almond Pistachio Torte with Baklava Flavors

Makes one (2 to 4-layer) 8-inch cake

1⅔ cup granulated sugar

Almond Pistachio Torte with Baklava Flavors

 

2 cups almond flour/meal
1¼ cups pistachio meal (see above)
1 cup white rice flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cinnamon (preferably true cinnamon, not cassia)
½ teaspoon ground cardamom seed
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened
2 eggs
3 egg yolks
¼ cup olive oil
½ cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon rose water
3 egg whites
¼ teaspoon cream of tarter
¼ cup sugar

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease 2 to 4 (8-inch) cake pans. Line the bottoms with parchment and grease the parchment. Set aside.

In a mixer bowl, combine the first 10 (dry) ingredients. With the paddle attachment or a whisk, combine all these ingredients well. Add the butter and beat the mixture until it makes thick crumbs. In a separate bowl, whisk together the whole eggs, yolks, olive oil, cream and flavorings. Pour these into the nut mixture and beat to combine.

In another mixer bowl, with whisk attachment, beat the egg whites and cream of tarter to soft peaks. Begin adding the 1/4 cup of sugar slowly, until the mixture has reached stiff, glossy peaks. Fold 1/3 of this meringue into the cake batter to loosen. Add in remaining meringue and fold in gently until no white remains. Divide this batter between the prepared pans. For 4 thin layers, bake for about 25 minutes, until a tester inserted in center comes out clean. For 3 or 2 pans, the time will be longer. Watch carefully.

GLAZE:
3 tablespoons water
3 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 strip lemon peel
1-inch true cinnamon stick
3 whole cloves
½ teaspoon rose water

While cake is baking, combine all the glaze ingredients, except the rose water, in a small saucepan. Heat through and then leave to steep while the cakes are baking. Strain the liquid into a small bowl and stir in the rose water. Once cakes are baked, use a pastry brush to apply the glaze. Use all, or some, as desired.

To frost the cake, turn the cakes out onto racks, then with another rack over top, invert, so the tops of the cakes are upwards. Trim edges as necessary to allow for stacking. The layers are quite wet. I have racks with the lines all running one way, which allowed for easy sliding onto the plate and next layer(s).

Honey Butter Icing on Almond Pistachio Torte

Honey-Butter Icing

Makes enough to frost the tops of 4 layers, or tops and sides of 2 layers
 
 1½ cups granulated sugar
⅓ cup cornstarch
1½ cups milk
1½ cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 tablespoons honey

In a medium saucepan, whisk together the sugar and cornstarch. Whisk in the milk and set the pan over medium heat. Whisking constantly, bring the mixture to boil and allow to boil for at least a few minutes to cook out the starch. This should take a total of about 10 minutes.

Pour the hot pudding into a stand mixer with the paddle attachment and beat the pudding on medium speed or higher until it is cooled to room temperature, so the butter does not melt on contact. Begin adding in about 2 tablespoons of the softened butter at a time, allowing each addition to fully incorporate before adding more. Once all incorporated, continue to beat until very fluffy and light.

Frost the cake layers as desired. Use some or all of the leftover pistachio bits to decorate the top or sides of the cake.

My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest. 

A Naturally Gluten Free Torte

Some years back I was shopping in San Antonio at the H.E.B. Central Market and came across Chestnut flour, from Italy. Of course, I had to have it. 

Chestnut Flour

I've loved chestnuts since I was a child, long ago. My mom loved chestnuts and brought us up having them at least once each Fall or Winter. Once, my husband and I were very briefly in Paris in Fall and we bought chestnuts, roasted over an open fire and presented to us in cones of newspaper. Ah, memories... 

Seeing chestnut flour, I was unsure what I would use it for, but that has never stopped me; I would find something. And somehow, the bag of chestnut flour was toted along as we moved here and there, stored in one of my Tupperware Modular Mates in the back of my cupboard. It was still good, too; sweet flavored and yummy. Now that i found a use, I will look for others. Chestnut flour can be found on Amazon, BTW.

Non sequitur: So a few days ago I was thinking about a sweet potato I have in my fridge and wanted to check out a recipe I had found a few years ago on the internet for a sweet potato cake with maple something-or-other icing. The icing part I was not so thrilled about as all they did was drizzle some maple syrup over the completed cake's icing. Not what I would have deemed "maple icing." Anyway, I went through folder after folder of recipes I have printed off and stored over the years and could not find it at all. Well. Okay, I also generally save the file before printing it out anyway so I set about hunting through my "recipes" folder on my computer. Ahem. As I said, I have been collecting recipes (and recipe books) for years and years, so I have a LOT of recipes stored. As I scrolled slowly down the list in Word, lo and behold; here was a recipe for a cake using chestnut flour! 

Dobos Torte

Grandma's Nut Torta

At this point, while I still wanted to check out the recipe for the sweet potato cake, I was intrigued. I do not recall having saved a recipe for a cake using chestnut flour, and it was certainly not printed and stowed in one of my recipe folders; having just looked. I rectified this by printing it immediately. Looking at the recipe, it called for chestnut flour and hazelnut meal, with no wheat flour at all. While I am not gluten intolerant, I have friends who are, so I am always on the lookout for recipes that would work for them. This recipe was gluten free by its very nature. Two birds, and all that. 

I obviously saved this recipe some long time ago, with no indication of the website I found it on; something I am more careful to note nowadays. It was called a "cake", and of course, it is. But I wondered if it would be classed as a torte. I started looking around, researching what, exactly, constitutes a "torte." As it turns out, all tortes are cakes, but not all cakes are tortes. There are two particular styles that classify a cake as a torte. One is a regular cake that is either baked in many layers, or sliced into many layers and stacked with a filling between each of the many layers. Cakes such as Dobos Torte fall into this category. The other is a type of cake generally made with eggs and nuts and little, if any, wheat flour. My Yugoslavian Grandmother made what she called "Nut Torta" and this is one of this second type of Torte cake.

The recipe that I found for this "cake" using chestnut flour also called for hazelnut meal. I am not overly fond of hazelnuts anymore, though they were once my most favored of all nuts. I decided I would substitute Almond Meal, because I knew I had some in my freezer. Then I had to decide what to fill the cake with. This torte is made as one-layer, so it could be left as one layer and frosted, or just dusted with confectioners' sugar. I decided to slice the cake into two layers and fill it. Now I started casting around in my mind for what would be a nice filling for this torte. I decided on a combination of dates and prunes. Either/or would also be good. I placed cut up dates and prunes in a saucepan with a small amount of water and brown sugar and cooked them until they were very thick and slightly broken down. I could have pureed the mixture at this point, but decided I didn't feel like washing the food processor bowl afterwards :-)

Chestnut Almond Torte with Prune Date Filling

I have been noticing for the last few months that when I use a recipe, even if I am substituting exact amounts, I need more liquid than called for. I can only guess that as it is quite dry here, especially after the heat running constantly all this long winter, all my flours are more dry than usual. I had to add liquid to this recipe also, so if you live in a place with high humidity, you may not need as much liquid. If your batter (before adding the meringue) looks like cookie dough, add up to ¼ cup of water or milk to thin it before proceeding. That said, the recipe was very skimpy on instructions, so I sort of just did as I thought best.

Chestnut Almond Torte

Makes one (8-inch) layer

Chestnut Almond Torte

1 cup chestnut flour
1 cup almond meal/flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup unsalted butter (8 TB), room temperature
½ cup sugar
3 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 large egg whites
¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
¼ cup sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees (325 on Convection). Grease an 8-inch round cake pan. Line the pan with parchment and grease the parchment. Set aside.

Whisk together in a mixing bowl the flours, baking powder and salt and set aside. In a mixer bowl, cream the butter and sugar thoroughly. Add the egg yolks, one at a time, beating until completely incorporated. Add in the vanilla, and, if your batter looks more like cookie dough than cake batter, add up to ¼ cup of liquid to thin it a bit. 

In a separate bowl with scrupulously clean beaters, whip the egg whites with the cream of tartar until well frothed. Begin whipping in the 1/4 cup of sugar a little at a time, just until the meringue holds stiff peaks. Fold about 1/3 of this meringue into the cake batter, to loosen. Then, gently fold in the remaining meringue until no streaks remain. Pour this batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool for at least 10 minutes before removing from pan to a rack to finish cooling. 

If you decide to fill this cake, wait until the cake has cooled completely before cutting into two layers. Proceed with the Date Prune Filling recipe, (or use the recipe for Ricotta Cream Cheese Filling). Once the filling is cooked, you might add in a little liqueur of choice. I was going to use Grand Marnier, but I had some almond liqueur from Spain and used that instead.

Date Prune Filling

Enough to fill one 8-inch cake

½ cup soft prunes (abut 10)
½ cup dates (about 10)
⅓ cup water
⅓ cup brown sugar
1 - 2 tablespoons liqueur, if desired

Photos 1 - 5: Filling Chestnut Almond Torte

Cut the dates and prunes into small pieces and place them in a small saucepan. Add the water and brown sugar and bring to boil. Lower heat and cook for about 15 minutes, until there is little liquid left and the fruits have broken down (photo 1 above). Cool slightly, then stir in the liqueur, if using. Spread the filling onto the bottom half of the cake (Photos 2 and 3 above). Set the top of the cake in place (photo 4 above) and dust with confectioners' sugar (photo 5 above). 



My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.