It’s Monday, and this is taken for granted, as the fact that a new week is beginning. Starting a new week with a smile on your face is not so obvious, but here I am, smiling, thanks to old and new friends and a long weekend spent with them. From Friday, with the Couchsurfing Monthly Meeting in Florence, to the medieval market in Siena on Saturday until yesterday, with a whole day dedicated to olive harvesting and good food with good people!
Since this is a food blog, let’s hit the main matter: food. I wanted to bake a cake able to close the lunch with fireworks, as we were going to eat home made pasta and barbecued ribs and sausages. I wanted something rustic and nourishing and I wanted to use buckwheat flour as I bought one pack of it more than one month ago! Following Camomilla’s wonderful recipe, with just a few changese, I baked a delicious cake with chocolate filling, one of the most gorgeous cake ever eaten, belive me!
Ingredients for the cake:
- plain flour, 100 gr
- buckwheat flour, 150 gr
- almond flour, 100 gr
- finely chopped hazelnuts, 50 gr
- eggs, 6
- sugar, 300 gr
- baking powder, 1 sachet
- melted butter, 100 gr
- icing sugar to serve
Ingredients for the chocolate filling:
- plain flour, 2 tablespoons
- unsweetened cocoa powder, 3 tablespoons
- icing sugar, 2 tablespoons
- milk, 330 gr
- tonka bean, 1/2 grated
To make the cake, beat well eggs and caster sugar until you have a light and frothymixture. Add sieved flours, chopped hazelnuts and baking powder and combine all the ingredients. At last, add melted butter and pour into a cake tin (24 cm wide) previously greased and dusted with flour. Bake in preheated oven to 180°C for about 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack.
To make chocolate filling, I follow my best friend Laura’s recipe: it is perfect since the first time I made it, almost 10 years ago. I just added grated Tonka bean as recently I’m addicted to it and, after all, it is amazing with chocolate! To cut a long story short, sieve flour, cocoa powder and icing sugar and pour little by little hot milk over the mixture, stirring to avoid lumps. At this point, I added grated Tonka bean, but this filling is delicious even without it, or with vanilla. Put the mixture on low heat and keep on stirring until it is firm, it requires just a few minutes. Choose the sweetness you pefer adding more or less icing sugar: my filling was quite bitter, as the buckwheat cake is sweet on its own.
Slice the cake into three layers and spread chocolate filling over two of them, then dust the surface with icing sugar. Et voilà! A very easy and quick cake, with a rustic and peculiar taste, I’ll make it again, and again, and again!
I’ll leave you with some pictures of yesterday’s beautiful day. Have a good week and for those who are in Florenze, let’s meet at the Cavoletto book presentation!
Although the weather was cloudy, we have had mild temperatures and we enjoyed a few sun rays in the afternoon!
Thanks to Roberto, we had the chance to taste just pressed extravirgin olive oil.. what do you think? Was it good or not?
You should be interested also in:
- Jamie Oliver’s Two-nuts Chocolate Cake
- Chocolate, cream and mascarpone trifle
- Red Velvet Cake and Happy New Year!
- Crepes Cake
- Dark Chocolate Meringue Tart
Tag: almond, Chocolate, hazelnut
Beautiful recipe and picture! Who would have thought that buckwheat could look so appetizing?
Yes, it DOES look gorgeous! I will be saving this to try later
)
Oh my, the cake just gorgeous! Looks so scrumptious! hmm…mm…. It’s in my list to do. Thanks. Btw, olive oil is extremely expensive over here. I hope that I can get them cheaper.
I love buckwheat. I love hazelnuts. I love chocolate. I thought half a tonka bean would put one in one’s grave? Maybe if you ate the whole cake by yourself.
Ciao Willy! Is it really so dangerous?? it was just half a tonka bean, and yes, in the whole cake!