RUM CHOCOLATE WALNUT TORTE

Happy Birthday to me! Hubby made me a birthday cake the night before. You should have seen him surrounded by cook books and it was already 9pm! I had my doubts that this cake would materialize. In the end he found his mother's recipe for walnut torte written on a scrap piece of paper in her own version of some kind of shorthand that only she would understand. The amazing thing was that the recipe only had ingredients marked on it no directions what so ever. For her it was not a problem after all she made a cake practically every weekend, but for Ron this was definitely going to be a learning curve. I must say for the man who stayed up until midnight to pull the cake out of the oven and then got up early in the morning to frost it..."The man done good!" the cake was delicious, he is anxious to try baking it again, because he has already figured out that he whipped the egg whites a tad too much, and he would not leave it in the oven for a full hour, because as he said, "I smelled it already after 45 minutes I should have checked it at that time, instead of leaving it in there for the full hour!" Pauline had written at the end of the ingredients... Bake at 350 for 1 hour or less. Ron felt the cake needed Less! He solved the problem by saturating the cake with RUM, which as far as I was concerned made the cake extremely moist and packed a lovely punch!

I think it only fair to give you guys the ORIGINAL RECIPE as it was written by my MIL., but Ron felt that I should write what he did so...

Walnut Torte

8 oz of walnuts (Ground)

12 eggs separated

4 T. cake flour

2 t. baking powder

1 C. sugar

1t. coffee (optional)

4 cap-fuls of rum

Bake 350 for 1 hr. more or less

Frosting

1/2 lbs. of butter

3/4 C icing sugar

3 eggs

5 squares unsweetened chocolate melted

juice from 1/2 lemon

3T. rum

Ron figured out how to assemble the cake by doing the following... he said I should include his directions, so I'm typing as he dictates.

He...

1. Beat the egg yolks with the paddle attachment

2.Add the sugar and continue beating if you are adding the coffee and rum do it at this stage.

3. In food processor combine walnuts, flour and BP and pulse to a fine consistency

4. Beat egg whites until stiff

5. Add walnut mixture to egg and sugar batter

6. Gently fold in egg white to batter mixture do not overwork

7.Pour batter into 2 springform pans greased and floured or in Ron's case he poured the batter into 3 -9 inch round forms.

Bake at 350 for 1 hour or less, as oven temperatures vary check after 45 minutes.

Cool on racks , when cool take a toothpick and poke holes in cakes. pour the rum onto cake layers to moisten before frosting.

Good Luck!

You gotta love men, they think they can do it all... it's easy peasy! I'm not complaining, I got a cake that he made with love !