Advocaat and chocolate torte

Impressive boozy torte for special occasions. Advocaat-soaked three-layer chocolate cake with an advocaat cream filling between the layers. The whole cake is covered with a more scrumptious advocaat cream and sprinkled with chocolate crumbs. It’s a truly decadent dessert with a large amount of alcohol ;-). And it’s for adults only.

Ingredients for the chocolate cake:

• 4 large eggs
• 200 ml milk
• 170 ml rapeseed or sunflower oil
• 1.5 cup soft brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 200 g plain flour
• 80 g cocoa
• 1 Tbsp natural or instant coffee powder
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 and 1/4 tsp baking powder

All ingredients should be at room temperature.

Add eggs, milk, oil, sugar and vanilla into a larger bowl and mix until smooth. Sift the plain flour, cocoa, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and coffee powder directly into the mixture. Mix gently with the spatula or balloon whisker only to combine the ingredients.

Prepare a baking pan with a diameter of 20 cm lined with baking paper. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake at 170ºC for about 60 minutes or longer, until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Remove from the oven, and cool.

Level a cooled cake with a serrated knife and crumble the cut-off part, set aside. Cut the levelled cake horizontally into three layers.

Advocaat cream:

• 350 ml milk
• 250 ml advocaat liqueur
• 6 egg yolks
• 80 g sugar
• 35 g plain flour
• 35 g cornstarch or potato starch
• 500 g mascarpone cheese, chilled

First, make an advocaat custard. In a saucepan, bring the milk just to boiling. Remove from heat and mix with the advocaat liqueur.

In a mixer bowl, mix the sugar and egg yolks until pale. Sift the flour and cornstarch together and then add to the egg mixture until you get a smooth paste.

Add the egg mixture to the milk and mix with a balloon whisker. Cook over medium heat until boiling, whisking constantly. When it boils, whisk the mixture for another 1 minute until it becomes thick. Remove from heat. Pour into a bowl and immediately cover the surface with plastic wrap to prevent a crust from forming. Cool to room temperature, then chill in the refrigerator.

Put the mascarpone cheese into your bowl and beat. Carefully add chilled advocaat custard and beat until incorporated and smooth.

Additionally:

• 1/2 cup (125 ml) coffee liqueur
• a few squares of dark chocolate

Method:

Place the first layer on the plate. Lightly soak. Spread evenly with 1/3 of the amount of Advocaat cream. Cover with a second layer, soak, then spread with half the remaining cream. Cover with the last chocolate cake layer, and soak. Spread the sides and top of the cake with the remaining cream. Cover the sides of the cake with chocolate crumbs, pressing them to the cake. Sprinkle some grated chocolate on the top. Chill for 12 hours.

Store in the refrigerator.

Enjoy!