Recipe: chocolate torte with hazelnut crema meringue

Chocolate, hazelnut and almond torte with a crisp and silky hazelnut crema meringue topping

I can’t count how many times I have imagined up a bake in my mind, visualised the exact way I intend it to turn out, only to be awoken from these dreams when something goes wrong–and something even better than what I imagined is the result. This torte is one example.

I am a self confessed chocoholic. Living in Sweden, we are inundated with mass amounts of pick and mix sweets. I love the idea of carefully curating your own bag of treats, selecting the most delectable looking sweets and then decanting your loot into a bowl at home to create a beautiful and edible spectacle, but in reality, chewy sweets do nothing for me. What I crave is creamy milk chocolate, or a crisp bite of dark, rich chocolate that slowly melts on the tongue. I find that when I’m craving chocolate, the only thing that works to satisfy that craving is by eating chocolate as is–very rarely does a slice of chocolate cake or brownie do the same job. However, a flourless chocolate torte is the anomaly. It is rich and dense enough to satisfy even the most intense of chocolate cravings, and this specific torte also pays heed to my love of the combination of chocolate with hazelnut.

As for where this torte didn’t go to plan, I detailed on my Instagram how I imagined billowing swoops and deep crevices of airy meringue that would transform into a beautiful spectacle once baked. I did fear that the meringue would make the torte overall a touch too sweet, but I proceeded anyway with caution. However, for the first time in my life, my meringue did not whip up properly. After whisking for a good 6 minutes, then 8, then 10, the mixture didn’t go beyond the consistency of a thick custard. I persevered and continued to add the hazelnut crema and turn the speed up to high… with no success. I was left with a silky, thick, golden puddle of meringue which I decided to pour onto the torte anyway and return to the oven, just to see what might happen–and what happened was a glorious, delicious thing. The top layer of the meringue crisped up beautifully and, once the tip of my knife made contact, shattered theatrically to reveal a golden lake of creamy, velvety meringue beneath. The amount of meringue was the perfect in terms the sweetness that is added to the rich, dark torte, with a beautiful hit of hazelnut from the crema. A happy accident if ever there was one.