If you like walnuts and chocolate, look no further. It is a rather decadent and flavorful cake full of walnuts and chocolate with brandy for aroma and flavor together with cinnamon and cloves bathed in syrup. It is easy to make and easier still to eat.
Ingredients 1 ½ cups sugar 1 cup milk 1 cup butter or margarine 2 cups walnuts broken in small pieces 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 1 teaspoon ground cloves 2 ½ cups semolina 2 ½ cups self raising flour 5 eggs 2 teaspoons baking soda 3 teaspoons baking powder 3 – 4 tablespoonfuls brandy 200 gr chocolate 60% cocoa For the syrup 4 cups sugar 3 cups water 1 teaspoon lemon juice
Directions
Mix the flour with the semolina, baking soda and baking powder, cinnamon and cloves. Chop up the chocolate roughly. Separate the eggs, and beat the whites until stiff.
Brush a medium sized baking tin with butter and you can sprinkle some cocoa powder, You can use flour, but it will show on the dark cake.
Beat the butter very well until it is light and fluffy. Add the sugar and continue beating until fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the brandy and stir.
Add the flour to the butter mixture, a couple of tablespoons at a time, alternating with a couple of tablespoonfuls of meringue and a little of milk and mix gently after each addition. Repeat until all the ingredients are finished.
Fold gently the walnuts and the chocolate. If you want it more ‘chocolaty’, you can add ½ a packet of chocolate drops.
Pour in the prepared baking pan and bake in a preheated oven at 180oC for about one hour. Check if it is done with a toothpick, and see if the cake has pulled away from the sides of the pan.
In the meantime prepare the syrup. Place the ingredients in a pot and simmer gently for 10 minutes. Cool.
When the cake comes out of the oven, pour the cool syrup over it gently, a tablespoonful at a time. Let the cake cool and absorb the syrup, cut it in pieces and…watch it disappear!
You can serve it plain, with vanilla ice-cream or whipped cream.
Enjoy!