Chocolate Hazelnut Torte: Gluten Free
Moist, dense and hazelnutty with just a hint of orange, this recipe for a gluten-free chocolate hazelnut torte is sure to impress. It’s made with ground hazelnuts, buckwheat flour and lots of chocolate with some orange liqueur thrown in for good measure. Glaze it if you wish, but in true Italian style, it’s quite delectable unadorned.
Clandestine Cake Club
I was on leave from work last week, so I was able to attend my 3rd Clandestine Cake Club (CCC) meeting in Cornwall. This time it was in our lovely county city of Truro. And in a newly opened cafe I’ve eyed up a couple of times, but not actually ventured into.
Grounded specialises in coffee but also does a mean line in sandwiches to eat in or take away. Homemade cakes are also on offer.
I’d seen a fantastic hazelnut torte on a blog very recently and knew that’s what I wanted to make for this month’s theme of Italian tortes. I thought I’d bookmarked it, but when I came to find it, there was no sign. I couldn’t for the life of me remember where I’d seen it, so I googled with a number of different key words, but all to no avail.
Chocolate Hazelnut Torte
Luckily, Sophie Grigson came to my rescue with her chocolate and hazelnut torte on the BBC Food website. And as is my wont, I adapted it in a number of ways, including making it gluten free.
This chocolate hazelnut torte is actually quite similar to my recipe for chocolate walnut torte squares. Only the quantities and method vary a bit and I use rum instead of orange liqueur. Oh! And of course I add ground walnuts rather than ground hazelnuts to the mix.
When it came to decorating the torte, I decided against Sophie’s suggested glaze. I thought the cake quite rich enough as it was. These sort of cakes are really good with just a dusting of cocoa powder I find. However, for this one I also used some cappuccino stencils to create a few interesting motifs with icing sugar.
Fairtrade Ingredients
As many of you already know, I try to bake with as much organic, fairtrade or local produce as I can. I try to buy local where possible. This is not just because the food is likely to be fresher, but it helps support the local economy and reduces food miles.
Sadly chocolate and quite a few other things I buy cannot be grown in the UK. Warmer climes than ours are needed.
These ingredients are often the ones to look out for as mainstream products can leave small producers in developing countries open to exploitation. Fairtrade guarantees a minimum fair price for the producers and enables them to invest in schools, health centres and other local infrastructure projects.
In a continued bid to raise awareness, The Fairtrade Foundation are running The Big Fair Bake campaign from 24th September – 7 October. Try your hand at winning a KitchenAid in their baking competition. I know I’m going to.
Whilst I’m on the subject of Fairtrade, Ndali Vanilla is the only vanilla that currently has fairtrade status. Following on from a recent visit to Uganda to report on Ndali Vanilla for the Food Programme on Radio 4, Vanessa Kimbell is organising a fairtrade vanilla gift swap on 24 September. You can see the details on her blog.
Clandestine Cake Club Continued
The CCC turn-out was quite small, which was just as well as Grounded is quite compact and we would have been stuffed to the gunwales with more people and unable to get to the all-important cake.
Luckily this wasn’t the case and for the first time ever, I was able to try a piece of every cake there.
All of the tortes were delicious and luckily none of them were the same. Mine was moist, dense & hazelnutty with just a hint of orange and liqueur. CT, in true partisan spirit, pronounced it delicious and the best cake there.
Other Chocolate Cakes You Might Like
- Celebratory chocolate cake (vegan)
- Chilli chocolate cake with apricot curd buttercream
- Chocolate almond cake
- Chocolate polenta cake
- Chocolate yoghurt cake
- Lavender chocolate cake
Keep in Touch
Thanks for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make this chocolate hazelnut torte, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. And do please rate the recipe. Have you any top tips? Do share photos on social media too and use the hashtag #tinandthyme, so I can spot them.
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Choclette x
Chocolate Hazelnut Torte. PIN IT.
Chocolate Hazelnut Torte – The Recipe
Chocolate Hazelnut Torte
Equipment
Ingredients
- 200 g dark chocolate (I used 100g of 85% dark Fairtrade chocolate plus 100g of 52% dark Fairtrade hazelnut chocolate)
- 125 g unsalted butter diced
- 90 g hazelnuts
- 4 medium eggs
- 125 g golden caster sugar (I used Fairtrade)
- 30 g soft brown sugar
- 60 g buckwheat flour
- ¼ tsp gluten-free baking powder
- 4 tbsp orange liqueur (I used my own homemade version)
- 1 pinch sea salt (I used Himalayan pink rock salt)
- cocoa powder for dusting (I used Fairtrade)
Instructions
- Melt the chocolate in a bowl suspended over a pan of hot, but not boiling, water.200 g dark chocolate
- Remove from the heat and add the butter. Stir until smooth.125 g unsalted butter
- Grind the hazelnuts in a coffee grinder, food processor or blender.90 g hazelnuts
- Separate the eggs and into two bowls.4 medium eggs
- Add the sugars to the egg yolks and beat with electric beaters until pale and doubled in volume.125 g golden caster sugar, 30 g soft brown sugar
- Pour in the chocolate mixture and stir until just incorporated.
- Sieve in the flour and baking powder, then fold into the egg mixture along with the ground hazelnuts.60 g buckwheat flour, ¼ tsp gluten-free baking powder
- Stir in the orange liqueur as lightly as possible.4 tbsp orange liqueur
- Whisk the eggs whites with a pinch of rock salt until stiff, then fold into the chocolate mixture, a third at a time.1 pinch sea salt
- Spoon into a 23cm (9″) round silicone mould and bake in a preheated oven at 180℃ (160℃ fan, 350℉, Gas 4) for about 30 minutes. The top should be firm to the touch and an inserted toothpick should come out with only a few moist crumbs attached. But it’s important not to over bake this cake or it will become dry and less flavoursome.
- Allow to cool for ten minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
- Transfer to a plate, then dust with cocoa powder.cocoa powder
- Leave as is, or decorate as I did with icing sugar sifted over cappuccino stencils.
Notes
Nutrition Estimate
Sharing
The Big Fair Bake Foodies 100 is a baking challenge, whereby bloggers need to bake something using fairtrade ingredients and blog about it. This recipe for chocolate hazelnut torte is my entry.
I like the icing sugar/ stencil idea. Looks good.
It sounds and looks absolutely amazing. I wish I could try it.
This sounds positively delicious, I would love to indulge in a slice. Blessings, Catherine
Thank you Catherine – it was a particularly good one.
That looks delicious and beautiful. Gluten free as well! Glad you found the recipe 🙂
Thanks Vanessa 🙂
I’d love to go to a CCC, there isn’t one in my neck of the woods although I guess I’m the obvious person to start one!! Cake looks divine, I adore chocolate and orange together.
Thanks Sarah. You’d think there would be dozens in London. The trouble with Cornwall is it’s such a long county, we usually have to travel a long way to get to a CCC. But it is worth it.
I really wish I’d been able to go now, your torte looks amazing! Anything chocolate and hazelnut is good, but with orange as well sounds delicious!
Well hopefully, you’ll be able to make the next one and we can overdose on birthday cakes. The torte was a good one, but I have to say, so were most of the others.
Lovely sounding cafe but your cake sounds worthy of being on their menu – I hope they make you an offer you can’t refuse ;0)
Chele, you say the nicest things 😀
Oh look at all that cake. Your gluten free torte looks and sounds delightful and I live your simple and elegant decorating too. I also applaud your ethics and always have choclette. Great to celebrate this way! X
Oh Dom, I love it when people throw the word elegant in my direction, it’s so not me, but so gratifying 😉
Thanks for your lovely comment.
This cake looks really inspiring! I like the orange liquor flavour combined with chocolate. I would like to buy more local and organic too, but it is expensive. I found a few fairtrade products with a good quality/price and I regularly buy them (especially chocolate!!). Regarding organic vegetables I started growing my own. I like the picture of the plate full of cake slices!
Thank you rita. Glad to hear you’re growing your own, it can be hard work, but it feels so good when your are eating our own produce I find. it’s true, local and organic can be more expensive, but maybe the cost would come down if more of us brought it.
What a pretty cake! I wish that I were able to attend the Vanilla event, but it’s just too far away and bad timing for me. CCC sounds like lots of fun and great that you were able to try a bit of everything this time! I try and be mindful of fairtrade and buy when I can, but I should think harder about it routinely.
Thanks C Yes, it’s too far for me too really, which is one of the reasons I’m unable to attend. It would be fun to go though.
your cake looks wonderful. I love the decorations. Thanks for letting me know about the challenge!
Thanks Alida, I was rather taken with the motifs too. I need to be a bit more careful next time and not get icing sugar over other bits of the cake, but I thought it wasn’t a bad first attempt.
Cake club is such fun and all the cakes look wonderful. Love the decoration on yours. It really stands out. Great theme too 🙂
Thanks Jac. What I’m wondering is why didn’t any of us think about such a wonderful invention as CCC years ago :-S
What a fabulous torte, the CCC always sounds like great fun.
As you know I’m a firm believer in Fairtrade, and I’m going to follow the link and sign up, thank you for sharing it.
I wish you were able to come to Fortnum’s next week, I do hope it won’t be too long until we can catch up. Jude x
Thanks Jude – it’s always a great pleasure to eat and talk cake. Sorry I won’t be seeing you next week, I’m sure it will be good fun, but hopefully another time …..!
Oooh look at that plate full of cake – how very, very lovely.
Kath, it just shows that dreams can come true 😉
How dark is that cake? The white icing sugar really emphasises the darkness of the cake
I liked the contrast too Janice
That looks really luvly. I would appreciate some cake now … or even better a CCC meeting, but sadly I guess, I have to go without both of it …
I love the decoration on your cake … especially the smiling face!
Thanks Chris, I was rather taken with the face too. How about founding your own CCC?
As you know, I am a big nut fan so this would certainly appeal to me. In fact, my WSC cake this month features ground almonds but hazelnuts do have a real affinity with chocolate. I love a good bit of texture and have never used buckwheat flour, bet it’s great!
I am envious of that plate of cake you got to eat at the CCC and the cafe looks like a good find. I could do with a decent cafe in Epsom xx
I know the feeling Laura, we could do with a decent cafe here in Liskeard. Looking forward to seeing your WSC cake – like you I love nuts in cakes.
Looks fab! I’m a sucker for anything with hazelnuts so I will be bookmarking this for future reference. Also, thanks for the link to the competition to win a KitchenAid mixer. I saw this on TV, I think, but I couldn’t remember the link or anything.
Keep up the good work :O)
It’s a delicious and moist cake, well worth making. Glad you found the reminder useful.