Chocolate, Date & Hazelnut Meringue Torte

"My old high school friend, Helen, turned 50 this year (2007) and had her party at The Gap Tavern in Brisbane. They served this cake and Mother Kooka said, "That's all I want for my birthday! I want you to make me that cake!" Well! I had no idea what it was, but I googled and found some possibilities and then cobbled together this recipe. We had it yesterday for Mother Kooka's 83rd birthday party and it was an absolute hit! In fact, one guest said, "I am not going home until you give me the recipe!" I promised I'd post it on Zaar so that everyone could enjoy it - so here it is! Important: make it the afternoon before you want it, as it needs to sit in the oven overnight. (Oh, by the way, I've said it will serve 10, but we had nearly 20 at the party and I served everybody by cutting very thin slices. It's quite rich, so nobody felt deprived)."
 
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Ready In:
1hr 50mins
Ingredients:
11
Serves:
10
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ingredients

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directions

  • Cake:

  • Preheat oven to 180c (170C fan forced).
  • First, prepare the nuts. Place the hazelnuts on a baking tray and bake at 180C for exactly 8 minutes (set a timer so you don't burn them).
  • Remove nuts from oven, wrap in a tea towel and then rub firmly to remove as much skin as possible. You may have to do this a couple of times and rub stubborn ones between your fingers. Don't fuss too much if some skin won't come off - just get rid of as much of the loose papery stuff as possible.
  • Put skinned and roasted hazelnuts into a food processor and chop roughly. Place nuts into a medium mixing bowl.
  • Now break up the chocolate and place it in the food processor and chop roughly. Don't worry if it's not evenly chopped, some will be like grated chocolate, and you'll have some larger bits. That's fine. Just don't overchop it. Add chocolate to nuts in mixing bowl.
  • Cut dates in half then process in a food processor until finely chopped, but be careful not to pulverise them to mush. Add dates to mixing bowl.
  • Using your hands or a spoon, mix nuts, chocolate and dates well.
  • Now, spray a 22-24cm (9") springform tin with spray oil and line base and sides with silicone paper. Paper should come 2.5cm-5cm (an inch or two) over the top of the tin.
  • In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat egg whites until soft peaks form, then add sugar, 1 tablespoon a time, beating after each addition, until all the sugar is used. Continue beating until mixture is stiff and glossy.
  • Note: If you don't have a large mixer, it's a good idea to divide the egg whites and sugar in half and beat each half in a different medium sized bowl.
  • Using a spatula, gently fold date, hazelnut and chocolate mixture into the egg whites until well combined.
  • Spoon mixture evenly into prepared tin, smooth top and bake on the centre shelf of the oven at 180C (170C fan forced) for 50 minutes.
  • After 50 minutes, turn off oven, but DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN DOOR! Leave the cake in the oven overnight (or at least for several hours until the oven is completely cold) without opening the door.
  • The next morning, you can remove the cake from the oven and decorate it just before serving.
  • Ganache:

  • It's best to make the chocolate ganache the day before too. Simply bring the cream to a boil, remove from the heat, add the chopped chocolate and stir until chocolate is melted. Pour into small bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight.
  • The next day, remove the ganache from the refrigerator and sit on the kitchen bench until it comes back to room temperature (this will take at least 2 hours).
  • Decoration:

  • Just before serving, remove cake from springform tin onto a serving plate.
  • Add sugar and vanilla to whipping cream and beat with electric mixer until thick.
  • Spread whipped cream over the top of the cake.
  • Spoon room temperature ganache into a piping bag with a large star nozzle fitted.
  • Pipe rosettes around the perimeter of the cake and one large rosette in the centre.
  • Remove stems from strawberries and cut strawberries in half.
  • Pile strawberries (or berries of your choice) onto the top of the cake.

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Reviews

  1. Absolutely delicious and super simple. One of the best cakes I've ever made. I used mostly dark chocolate and a bit of milk hazelnut chocolate. I used 2/3 dates and 1/3 prunes for extra stickiness. I also added zest of an orange which was lovely. I was thinking you could make this recipe a bit more festive and have for Christmas with the addition of some cinnamon, figs and dried cranberries perhaps. I made a small amount of nutella ganache instead of the one in the recipe and just drizzled it over the cake roughly. It looked great and tasted amazing served with extra thick cream and fresh strawberries. Wish I'd remembered to take a photo. Highly recommend.
     
  2. This cake is absolutely AWESOME! The hazelnut flavour shines right through and is fabulous. We were lucky enough to share this cake with Kooka and Mother Kooka as part of Mother Kookas birthday celebrations at Avalon. Thank you Kooka for a wonderful day and delicious cake.
     
  3. I was fortunate enough to have a slice of this birthday cake. This is truly an awesome torte. You worked magic in your kitchen Kooka. This is just heavenly. In fact, I have order this torte for my birthday. My DD has been hanging out for Kooka to post her fantastic recipe. Thank you Mother Kooka for your superb taste in birthday cakes and thank you Chef Kooka for generously sharing this recipe with us humble cooks at Zaar. hugs Chris
     
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RECIPE SUBMITTED BY

<p>Above: Slideshow of our garden at Avalon Slideshow of our recent holiday at Woodgate Beach, South-East Queensland, Australia. Hi! I'm Kookaburra, from Australia. First, a promise. I will only post recipes on this site which I've made myself and to which I would personally give a 5 star rating - what you give them is up to you ;-) I look forward to receiving your feedback. If you look at my reviews, they're all 5 stars. That doesn't mean I give 5 stars to every recipe I try. I'm just not interested in giving poor ratings to anyone else's recipe because I accept that different people have different tastes. So, I've decided that I'll only review those recipes which I really love and which I'd make again and recommend to friends. If a recipe meets that criteria - even if it needs a bit of 'tweaking' to match my tastes, I'll give it 5 stars. If not, I'll just delete it from my recipe book and no hard feelings. I'm not advocating this as the 'right' approach. I just decided I needed a consistent strategy for rating and this is mine. I'm passionate about cooking - and eating! What I look for in food is something that 'zings' in the mouth. I like lots of taste - I'm not a big fan of subtlety. I don't often cook recipes exactly as written. I like to experiment and adapt things to my own taste. A retired marketing executive and academic, I live with my elderly (but thoroughly modern) mother in a tiny mountain village at the edge of the rainforest. I'm female, happily single, in my mid-40s and boast the Rubenesque figure of a passionate cook! Avalon, our 'story-book' cottage, overlooks a small lake. As I sit at my computer or work in the kitchen, I'm serenaded by a cacophany of native birds - including a very fat family of kookaburras! We have quite a large property and are lucky to have vegetable gardens and a variety of fruit and nut trees. I look forward to sharing recipes on Recipezaar with family, friends and friends I've yet to meet. last minute flight</p>
 
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