Working ovens and a Chocolate & Hazelnut Torta

My beloved and I have been in our own home for just over a year now; you can see a pic of her here. She's a cute little house.

But being over 80 years old comes with a certain number of ailments. She has difficulties with her joints, her plumbing and her wiring. Her laugh-lines, however, are delightful and full of character that can only be gained from 80 years of loving inhabitants.

When it comes to repairing the old girl, we are in for a marathon and not a sprint I'm afraid. Unless we win lotto (of which I've never bought a ticket), make a bucket load of cash from my blog (ha ha ha), or our puppies dig up hidden treasure in our backyard (unlikely - finding treasure that is, not the digging).

The point of this story is to talk about my oven. It is crap! Or it was crap.

Allow me to set the scene. Before we bought the old girl we were living in a brand new, 3 bedroom townhouse with a gas stove and electric oven. Tough life!

The gas stove and electric oven in our rental property

When we moved to our very own piece of paradise I inherited this:

The non-working oven and stove top

It actually doesn't look too bad in this photo. However, the two hot plates on the left don't work and the oven has a wonderful knack of burning EVERYTHING that goes into it. This is the reason why I have not blogged about anything to do with baking since moving in. I have tried multiple ways to bake in the thing: put a tray on the bottom to defuse the heat, only place your tray of goodies on the very top part (as it was always burning the bottom), keep the temperature lower/higher/medium, cook for a shorter time/longer time………yes, I have tried it all.

FINALLY my beloved and I agreed to buy an interim oven. In about five years time we are going to renovate the end of the house that the kitchen is in, but I couldn't last that long with the crap oven. So we welcomed:

My beloved installing the new oven

We bought if from eBay for a bargain AUD$311 brand new. It had a couple of dents in it making it cheap. I'm still getting used to have four working hot plates (although they are still electric) and an oven that I can finally bake in. I am still using, however, my little camper gas oven for a lot of what I do. Some of you might have noticed it in a few past posts here and here.

Now for the first time in a very long time I would like to share with you a scrummy cake recipe, that is also gluten free, and one that I could cook in my very own oven.  Enjoy!


Chocolate & hazelnut torta
by Delicious magazine, May 2012 edition
*SRKitchen note - this recipe can easily be halved or turned into two cakes. Because it is so rich you only small slices are needed, unless you have a real sweet tooth.

Chocolate & hazelnut torta

Ingredients
400g hazelnuts, roasted
400g good-quality dark chocolate
400g unsalted butter, at room temperature
300g caster sugar
10 eggs
Good-quality cocoa powder, to dust (optional)
*I also added in a half-cup sour cherries to break up the sweetness of this cake.

Method
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius. Grease a 25cm spring-form cake pan with butter.

Roasted, then peeled hazelnuts

Rub roasted hazelnuts in a clean tea towel to remove skins, then coarsely grind nuts in a food processor. (SRKitchen tip - alternatively get friends/partners/children to help remove the skins from the
hazelnuts. Makes the job quicker and you get to natter while you do it).

coarsely ground hazelnuts

Melt the chocolate in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water (don't let the bowl touch the water), stirring until melted and smooth. Cool slightly.

Gently melting chocolate

Using electric beaters, beat the butter and sugar with a pinch of salt until thick and pale.

Beaten butter and sugar

Add cooled chocolate and mix well until smooth and combined.

Melted chocolate added to the butter and sugar

Beat in the eggs, 1 at a time beating well after each addition, until combined.

Crack your eggs in a separate dish, just in case
you get a bad one.

Fold in the hazelnuts

Torta mixture all ready to go in cake pan

Pour the mixture into the prepared cake pan. Bake for 40-50 minutes until the top is firm to touch and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. (SRKitchen tip - I am still getting used to my oven, however I found the cake needed a longer cooking time. If this is needed with you place a piece aluminium foil (buttered) over the top of the cake to stop it from burning, something I didn't do).

Turn off the oven, open the door and leave cake to rest in the oven for a further 30 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Dust with cocoa powder, slice in wedges and serve with fresh berries (or mascarpone, as I did).

My beautifully clean oven inside

New, but old, cookbooks

It's like Christmas has been extended for me.

A dear friend of mine, KB, has just moved house. You know what it is like when you move!?! You start packing up your belongings with great care and even a little nostalgia at some of the memories you find in cupboards and drawers. Precious trinkets are wrapped with care and gently placed in labelled boxes ready for their next abode. Then after several hours, or days, the care of how you are packing dissipates along with those warm felt memories and are replaced by the screaming thoughts of, 'why the hell have I kept all this [add suitable noun here]', pounding in your head.

I digress. So KB has moved to the other side of Brisbane and wanted to clean out her kitchen cupboards. After a number of texts asking what I might need in my kitchen, she turned up with two boxes FULL of books and kitchenware items. I was in heaven. I do have a penchant for collecting books of all types. I aim to have my own library in my house one day - when I own a house - and these new cookbooks will offer a wonderful addition to it.

My new, but old, cookbook collection
(Photo by Mel)

There were some real little treasures in the collection. For those not familiar with Margaret Fulton, she's considered the matriarch of Australian cooking. Her book (you can see in the photo), My Very Special Cookbook was published in 1980, this one is a 1991 reprint and I love it. She goes into such great detail about ingredients and how to use varying techniques to get the most out of them. I can't wait to cook from this.

Another special edition to my cookbook collection
(Photo by Mel)

Another book I would like to highlight could easily double as a coffee table book, with stunning photos of Australia scattered throughout its pages of scrumptious recipes. It certainly screams 'eighties' but will add a wonderful addition to my growing collection.

Soup terrine (photo by Mel)

I also managed to score some more ramekins and a wonderful soup terrine with a matching set of six bowls. Now all I need to do is find room for all these treasures in my own kitchen.

Thank you, KB!!