TORT CU NUCA / WALNUT CAKE

I love walnuts and walnut desserts. I have found this recipe here on this site GoodFood.ro - Walnut Cake, I have saved it to favourites and I have finally prepared it! It is a simple recipe, although a little time consuming - but it's worth it  - it is delicious!

Ingredients:

3 CAKES BAKED SEPARATELY, FOR EACH OF THEM YOU WILL NEED
3 eggs, a little salt, 1/2 package vanilla sugar (or a few drops of vanilla essence), 3 tbsp sugar, 1/2 package baking powder, 1 tbsp cocoa, 1 tbsp flour, 1 tbsp breadcrumbs, 1 tbsp grounded walnuts;

FILLING
250 g grounded walnuts, 100 ml milk, 1 package vanilla sugar, 275-300 g butter at room temperature, 180-200 g powder sugar, 1 tbsp cocoa, 2 full tbsp of chocolate cream (I used Nutella)

Optionally you can make a syrup for the cake layers - for the SYRUP you'll need
3 tbsp sugar, 150 ml water, 50 ml rum, 1 tsp orange essence

Difficulty: low

Preparation time: 2-3 hours

Method

SPONGE
Make and bake the 3 cakes one at a time. In the original recipe a 24 cm diameter cake form was used. Since I don't have one, I used a 26 cm diameter cake form, the cake layers were good, but not very thick. Thus I would recommend using a 24 cm diameter cake form and maybe the baking paper will come down easier.

In a bowl add the dry ingredients: 1/2 package baking powder, 1 tbsp cocoa, 1 tbsp flour, 1 tbsp breadcrumbs, 1 tbsp grounded walnuts. Mix and set aside.

Separate the eggs. Beat 3 egg whites with a pinch of salt, add the sugar and the vanilla continuing to mix with the mixer at maximum speed. Add the dry ingredients carefully with a whisk. Grease and sprinkle with flour a cake form, put baking paper on its bottom, add the cake mixture and bake in the preheated oven at 180-200 Celsius degrees (gas mark 3-4) for approximately 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean. Put the cake on a grate to cool down until you can remove the paper. Carefully remove the paper. Set aside until everything else is ready.

In the same cake tin (you don't have to wash it) add a clean baking paper and bake a second identical cake and then, changing the baking paper again, a third one. In the meantime you can make the filling.

FILLING

Heat 100 ml of milk with the vanilla sugar. When really hot, remove from the heat and combine with 250 g of grated walnuts. Set aside to cool (you can prepare this while the first sponge is cooking so that it will have enough time to cool).

Mix the soft butter with the powdered sugar using a mixer. Add 2 tbsp of Nutella one by one, then the cocoa and finally the walnut mixture, one tablespoon at a time.

SYRUP (optional)
(I did not use syrup because the sponges were really really fluffy so I didn't think syrup was needed since they were also a bit thin).
Melt 3 tbsp of sugar, add 150 ml of water and boil until the sugar has melted. Add the rum and the orange essence. Sprinkle on the sponges while warm and let aside the sponges to cool completely before adding the butter filling.

Add the filling over each sponge and on top of the cake, if you want on the margins as well. Ornate the top of the cake with grated milk chocolate and walnuts, and the margins (if you covered the cake with the filling) with roughly chopped (shortly) fried walnuts or almonds. Serve immediately or let it cool in the fridge for 3 to 4 hours.

Enjoy!