Ma ghilana mir din’an

Included with pictues. Please don't come at me for the pictues. I'm a baker and a chef among other things, but I am not a photograpgher

Ingredients (taken directly from the codex except for like two modifications by me)

CAKE:

One and a half cups of sugar

Two cups of finely ground toasted hazelnuts (or use hazelnut flour)

Three quarters of a cup of sifted flour

Two teaspoons of baking powder (sift into flour)

Eight eggs, whites & yolks separated

One and a quarter cups of apricot preserves

Apricot liqueur for brushing

ICING:

Eight ounces of chopped up dark chocolate

One cup of heavy cream

Pinch of salt

Two tablespoons of orange liqueur or rum or strong coffee (if wanted)

Instructions (rewritten by ME)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees

If you want to make your own hazelnut flour: Toast chopped hazelnuts either in toaster oven on a low setting or in a pan on the stove. They're done when it smells like toasted hazelnuts. If you're not sure, check frequently and make sure they're not burning. Process the toasted hazelnuts in a food processor until finely ground

Seperate your eggs. You need to be careful. Get any yolk into your egg whites and they won't whip correctly. Whip the egg whites first until stiff peaks from. This means that when you take the electric mixer out of the bowl, the egg whites hold their shape in a peak and don't sink back down. Be careful not to overwhip

Whip together the yolks and the sugar. KEEP whipping until the mixture is PALE PALE YELLOW. We need to incorporate air into this recipe and the mixing here is essential

Pour the ground hazelnuts into the egg yolk and sugar mixture. Full incorporate the ground hazelnuts

SIFT THE FLOUR AND BAKING SODA TOGETHER don't skip this step. Add the sifted flour to the egg yolk sugar hazelnut mixture SLOWLY

Put the electric mixer away. Get a rubber baking spatula or a wooden spoon. Pour the egg whites into the batter and fold the egg whites in gently until fully incorporated. If you don't know what I mean by this, watch a youtube video on folding in egg whites. We don't want to mix strongly here, there is a ton of air in those egg whites and we want to preserve as much of that air as possible. Mix until the egg whites and batter are fully mixed together.

Use butter and flour OR baking spray on two 8 inch baking pans and fill the pans evenly.

You preheated the oven, right?

Bake at 325 for 40 minutes. After 40 minutes, check for doneness. A toothpick inserted should come out clean. The codex entry tells you to bake this for an hour. AN HOUR IS WAY TOO LONG TRUST ME

Cool the cakes in their pans for 10 minutes then on a cooling rack for another 10-15. Cut cakes in half horizontally (this means like you'll have 4 round thin layers) and let sit on a pair of cookie sheets or something while you get the icing ready. Brush the cakes with apricot liquer. Be generous with that liquer.

Time to make the icing! Chop up the chocolate (or just use semisweet morsels) and put it in a bowl.

Gently boil the cream. Watch the cream. Do not let it come to a rolling boil. When it has just started to bubble, pour it over the chocolate and quickly stir until the chocolate has all melted.

Let the chocolate cream sit for 10-15 minutes.

You HAVE to whip it in an ice bath. This means you put the bowl with the chocolate cream into a larger bowl with ice and water in it. It WILL NOT WHIP NICELY if you dont. Also I put amaretto in it because I already had pulled it from the oven early and I knew amaretto was gonna be bomb in that icing.

Whip the icing with an electric mixer until it is a mousse like consistency.

Start assembling the cake. Warm up the apricop preserves in the microwave and spoon a third onto the first later. Top with some icing. Continue until you have assembled all cake layers do NOT add apricots to the top layer.

It's time to start icing the cake! Ice the sides first and then the top. Next time I might make more icing to be able to decorate more.

Decorate however you want! I didn't have candied apricots or anything so I just dumped the rest of the hazelnuts on the top and put crushed hazelnuts on the sides.

YOU ARE DONE. Enjoy it with your party members, your team mates, or, in my case, the ska band that was hanging out at my house.