Cake Slice Bakers 17 - October 2012 - Chocolate Almond Torte.

The Chocolate Almond Torte is what I chose to make for The Cake Slice Bakers' last ever bake from The Cake Book by Tish Boyle.

Unfortunately this has been a somewhat hectic time for me so I haven't baked half of the items I should have with The Cake Slice Bakers this year.

I did, however, make the chocolate peanut butter mousse cake, meringue cups with lime cream and fresh berries, individual warm chocolate puddings, not-quite-the-pumpkin-cheesecake and the apple cake with maple frosting. I would actually only class one of those as an actual cake.  I think that was one of my problems with the book - too many complicated desserty type things and not enough simple cake.  I have enjoyed most of what I have made, though, and will certainly refer to it for other recipes when I need a reasonably nice dessert for a special occasion.

The other thing I have already mentioned but is worth saying again is that the author of this book is American but has made the effort to convert every measurement to metric which I hugely appreciate as it saves me a lot of time.  She hasn't converted the oven temperatures but I'll let her off with that as it just takes me one glance at the front of a Delia book to get that right.

For the last month of this book, we had a completely free choice as to what we would bake. I chose the chocolate almond torte when I was invited to a friend's house for a girly night.  There were about six of us going and I said I would bring the pudding.  I thought a chocolate torte was likely to be appreciated by most women.  I also saw there was brandy in the ingredients and I knew immediately I would swap that for some of my favourite - amaretto.  In fact, I chose to add rather a lot of amaretto which was a good choice in my opinion.

The torte was lovely.  Quite rich but moist and almondy and was really set off with some raspberries and cream.  Very quick to make too so I am likely to make this one again.

So, goodbye to The Cake Book and hello to our new book. I have already made the first cake from it and will post next month.  The new book looks like it will have more proper cakes in it so I'm looking forward to that.

Please have a look at the Cake Slice Bakers Blogroll if you are interested in what the others chose to make this month for their free-choice. 

Meringue Cups With Lime Cream and Fresh Berries.

These are individual meringue cups with lime cream and fresh berries from the The Cake Book by Tish Boyle and I made them for this month's Cake Slice Bakers Challenge. You can see the blog roll here to see how others did the dessert.  Katie has updated the blog roll very recently so only active members are on there now. 

Basically, you make the meringue nests (a first for me and I felt so proud of myself!), then you make a lime curd (another first and I was utterly amazed at how easy it is to make  lime curd - and so delicious!), mix it through some whipped cream, fill the nests with it then sprinkle on some berries and a dusting of icing sugar.  

I have to say this was a really easy dessert but quite impressive.  Everyone in my family enjoyed one and usually they only eat desserts if they are chocolate so I was a very happy Mummy.

The recipes in this book are so easy.  She outlines every step to make it easy to follow and there are recipes for every occasion.