White chocolate torte for Tim's birthday

Do you like white chocolate? Despite my having a sweet tooth and being a complete chocoholic, white chocolate does not do it for me. It is just not my thing - I think it's OK, but I find it almost cloyingly sweet, and I prefer the smoothly sweet undertones of milk chocolate or the slightly bitter twist to dark chocolate.


However, my friend Tim is a white chocolate lover. He apparently has fought with his brother over who gets the white chocolate in their house. Accordingly, when Tim's birthday came up, it was a no brainer - I needed to make a cake based on white chocolate.


I found what I was looking for in the form of a White Chocolate Torte in Tempted - 150 Very Wicked Desserts. The cake itself contains white chocolate, and is covered with topping based on white chocolate, then decorated with more white chocolate. Unfortunately, there is no photo of this cake in the book, so it was a leap of faith regarding what the finished product would look like.


The cake itself is light as a feather, and because flour and chocolate are folded into beaten eggs, it has a degree of difficulty. For the uninitiated, when there is no butter in the cake batter, flour and other add-ins sink straight to the bottom of the beaten egg mixture, and have to be folded in carefully so as to avoid knocking the air out of the beaten eggs (which will result in a leaden cake), while ensuring that everything is thoroughly mixed in and not pooling under the eggs at the bottom of the bowl.



Once the cake is cooled, it is topped with a mixture of white chocolate, cream and marscapone. The topping is initially quite runny, so to ensure a good coating on the cake, I used three layers, waiting for each layer to partially set before pouring on the next.


Finally, I decorated the cake with white chocolate bark (made by melting white chocolate, spreading it thinly over a hard cool surface, then splintering it into pieces once set), and piping with supermarket bought fudge piping frosting.


If you are tempted by this cake, to make it you will need:


3 eggs
80g sugar
80g melted white chocolate
60g plain flour


Topping


150ml thickened cream
250g chopped white chocolate
125g marscapone


White chocolate bark or curls for decoration


Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease an 8" round springform pan.


In a large bowl, beat the eggs and sugar with a standmixer or electric hand beater until they are thick and pale. Sift the flour, then fold it into the egg mixture, followed by the melted chocolate.


Pour the batter into the prepared pan, and bake for 20 minutes or until cooked through. Allow the cake to cool in the tin before unmoulding.


To make the topping, put the cream and white chocolate into a medium sized saucepan, and stir over low heat until the chocolate has melted and the mixture is smooth. Take the saucepan off the heat, and allow to cool slightly. Mix the marscapone into the chocolate mixture, then spread the topping over the top and sides of the cake. (As mentioned above, my topping was quite runny, and I ended up pouring it over in three layers.)


Once the topping is set, decorate with the white chocolate bark or curls.


I can't tell you how the end product tasted, but Tim tells me it is very good, so you will just have to trust him on that.