Saturday 29 June 2013

Healthy Chocolate Torte

Chocolate comes from a fruit called a pod that grows on the cacao tree. A seedling tree generally must mature for five years before it produces pods, with peak pod production happening at 10 years. A cocoa tree can bear fruit and produce pods for 30 to 40 years. Each pod is similar in size to a football, and contains up to 50 cocoa beans. To make one ounce of milk chocolate, it takes 4 cocoa beans, and one ounce of dark chocolate requires 12 beans. An average American or Canadian will consume about 12 pounds of chocolate per year. However, the Swiss are the world’s largest consumers of chocolate, eating about 22 pounds of chocolate per person per year!

Chocolate can be bittersweet, and we don’t mean literally. Although chocolate has many benefits to your health, some facts about how chocolate is made may make you want to munch on a different snack, or at least lower your chocolate intake.

What a chocolaty torte, an unforgettable treat for the chocolate lovers. Being flourless it’s a gluten-free torte, hence, very suitable to those who are allergic to gluten containing foods. Dive into the indulging chocolate torte and eat’em up all at once. Not too sweet and not too creamy, so having it every other weekend won’t be a bad idea even if you are diet conscious.

Ingredients

3 oz. unsweetened chocolate
7 ½ oz. (1 ½ cups) unblanched almonds
5 eggs, separated
2 egg yolks
¾ cup granulated sugar
Salt

For the Buttercream Frosting:
3 oz. sweet butter
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
½ cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
3 oz. unsweetened chocolate

1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Grease a 9 x 3-inch baking dish.

2. Chop the chocolate roughly. In a food processor, pulse together chocolate and almonds till powdered. Separately, beat 7 egg yolks and sugar with electric beater till yolks are lemon-colored but not thick. Mix with chocolate mixture. Now, in another bowl, beat 5 egg whites and salt till mixed well. Mix well together egg whites and chocolate mixture.

3. Dollop the batter into baking dish and bake for 65 minutes. Let the cake cool for 15 minutes. Remove the cake from baking dish and freeze for almost 1 hour.

4. In the same time,to make buttercream, beat butter and vanilla with an electric beater. Add cream and sugar and beat for 4 minutes. Add 1 egg and beat on high for 2 minutes and then add another one for same time. Melt the chocolate, stirring, in a double broiler on medium flame. Blend butter mixture and chocolate. Refrigerate till firm.

5. Remove cake from freezer and cut in two layers horizontally. Beat butter cream till smooth. Place cut side up on the platter. Spread 1/3 of cream on top of first cake layer. Put second layer on top. Place the remaining cream on the top and sides of the cake.

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