Chocolate & Almond Torta
This is guaranteed to please and an easy chocolate cake recipe to make. Best eaten same day. No flour, but lots of ground almonds, gives it a crumbly moistness, while the nibbles of chocolate, which are crushed rather than melted, flavour every bite. When it emerges from the oven it will be a bit cracked on top so when cool sieve a layer of dark cocoa or icing sugar over it. Serve with crème fraiche.
Line the base of a 24 cm diameter cake tin with non-stick baking parchment and
grease the sides. Preheat oven to 170°C (340°F). Blitz the chocolate in a food processor until it is finely chopped but not too much - you want to retain the texture. Beat the eggs with the sugar and vanilla extract until the mixture is pale and thick. Fold in the chocolate, almonds and butter. Pour into the cake tin and bake for 40-45 minutes or until just firm to the touch. Leave to cool in tin, turn out and dust the top with cocoa or icing sugar before seerving. Serve with a spoonful of creme fraiche.
Theo Hodges
Theo Hodges was born in Kent. After a degree in Graphic Design she joined J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency as an Art Director working on accounts such as Rowntrees, Kraft and The Butter Council. While she was at University in Perugia, Italy she started collecting recipes from friends and family. In 1980 she set up her own design agency: Theo Hodges Design Consultants. For many years when they were young Theo, her sister and six cousins used to spend vacations at her Grandmother’s Victorian vicarage in Kent. ‘The thing about remembering childhood’ she says, is ‘there’s a whole lot of oblivion, and then out of it something floats up, quite sharp and clear. Many of the meals I can still see vividly and various recipes of mine were originally from Granny’s kitchen. ‘The kitchen garden was stuffed with raspberries, huge red dessert gooseberries, strawberries, runner beans, peas and much more with the hens in a shed at the back. But Granny only ate chicken breast and runner beans, followed by raspberries and Jersey cream - and therefore so did we. When raspberries were out of season, and in those days the season was much shorter, Granny made Victoria sponge cakes sandwiched with cream and home-made raspberry jam. On this limited but delicious diet we all thrived’. Theo’s mother was an excellent cook as well, and had been taught by the house- keeper at their house in Mougins, South of France. And once rationing was withdrawn in England in 1952 and good, fresh ingredients became available again, she amassed an enormous number of recipes which has formed the basis for Theo’s collection of family desserts.