Hazelnut Chocolate Cake

Recently in a magazine , I saw a recipe for a Chocolate Hazelnut cake that had polenta as an ingredient.  I have tried using polenta in cakes but have never had much success.  The idea of chocolate and hazelnut together sounded quite delicious though!  This is my version of a hazelnut and chocolate cake.  I mix it entirely in the food processor – not something I’ve done with cakes before even though I’ve frequently seen TV chefs do so.  The raw mixture is extremely thin – so thin that it couldn’t possibly bake into a cake, you might think!  Rest assured, it does!

Like my Chocolate Almond Slice and Hazelnut Coffee Cake, I add no butter or oil to the mixture.  The oil from the hazelnuts is sufficient to give the cake a moist texture.

Ingredients:

• ½ cup ground hazelnuts
• ¼ cup cocoa
• Scant ½ cup brown rice flour
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 3 eggs
• 1 egg white
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• ⅓ cup milk

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 180º C.

Line a 20cm round cake tin with baking paper.

Into the bowl of a food processor, place the ground hazelnuts, cocoa, brown rice flour and baking powder.  Blitz for 3 or 4 bursts of a few seconds – this ensures there are no large lumps in the ground hazelnuts.  (By including the other dry ingredients, it prevents the hazelnuts from forming a paste which can occur if they are processed too much by themselves.)  The mixture should be very fine.

To the food processor bowl, add the eggs, egg white, sugar, vanilla and milk.  Process for about 10 seconds to combine all of the ingredients.  The batter is extremely thin.

Pour the batter into the prepared tin.  Bake in the pre-heated oven for 45 minutes.  Test with a skewer before removing from the oven.