Cake

And so we begin Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets with a food only mentioned briefly in passing on Harry's twelfth birthday:

"Of course, his hopes hadn't been high; they'd never given him a real present, let alone a cake-- but to ignore it completely..." (Chamber of Secrets 5).

Since this mention of cake is super vague and non-specific (and is the only time in the entire series when Ms. Rowling doesn't tell us what kind of cake her characters are enjoying!), I get to choose what kind of cake we'll make! So we'll be trying a recipe for Hungarian Flourless Hazelnut Cake I found on allrecipes.com. 

You Will Need:

12 oz hazelnuts

2 tsp baking powder

6 egg yolks

5/8 cup granulated sugar

6 egg whites

1 pint heavy cream

1/8 cup chopped hazelnuts for garnish

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour (I thought this was flourless?) a 9" springform pan.

2. Grind hazelnuts until very fine. Place in a bowl and mix in the baking powder.

3. In a large bowl, whip the egg yolks with the sugar until a pale yellow color. Beat in the hazelnut mixture.

4. In a separate CLEAN bowl, with CLEAN beaters, whip the egg whites until stiff.

5. Quickly fold 1/3 of the whites into the yolk mixture, then add the remaining whites and fold in until no white streaks remain.

6. Pour the batter into your prepared pan and bake for 60-75 minutes (mine was done after 60), until the cake springs back when lightly tapped.

7. When the baked cake has cooled completely, slice it horizontally into 3 (or just 2) layers.

8. Whip the cream until stiff, and spread generously between the layers, and on the top and sides. Sprinkle the top with chopped hazelnuts.

This cake is really delicious! Not too sweet, super easy to make, and such a pleasant hazelnut flavor. Yummy! I hope you enjoy it!