Even though the pandemic-fueled baking craze has emptied store shelves of wheat flour, there are plenty of alternative flours to be found. During Passover I decided to try using quinoa flour for the first time in Melissa Clark's Hazelnut Citrus Torte.
The recipe calls for either hazelnut flour or almond flour and I decided to use almond flour since I was low on hazelnuts. To make the torte, you whip egg yolks with sugar until thick and pale; add oil, lemon zest, lemon juice, and orange juice; fold in the dry ingredients (sugar, nut flour, and quinoa flour); and incorporate egg whites that have been beaten with salt and sugar to stiff peaks. I poured the batter into a cheesecake pan with a removable bottom that I had greased and lined with parchment. I used a loose-bottom pan instead of a springform pan because cakes are usually more difficult to release from a springform.
The surface of the torte was fairly level when I took it out of the oven, but I noticed that the middle was starting to sink as it cooled. It looked like the torte was pretty well adhered to the sides of the pan, so I got the bright idea that I should turn the pan upside down on a rack to prevent the middle from sinking in while the cake cooled (the same way you cool an angel food cake upside down to prevent it from deflating). I assumed that the cake would stay attached to the sides of the pan even though the bottom of the pan was loose.
I walked away for a bit and when I came back, I saw that the sides of the torte were no longer stuck to the sides of the pan. Instead, the bottom of the pan -- with the cake still attached -- had come loose and the cake was resting directly on the cooling rack. I turned the cake right-side up immediately, but the pattern of parallel lines from my cooling rack was already imprinted on top of the cake, as you can see in the photo above. There might have actually been a benefit to the cake falling out of the pan and onto the rack, because the torte ended up pretty level in the end.
I thought this torte was okay. The texture was the sort of half-wet texture that you often find in cakes made with nut flour and leavened with eggs. I'm not a fan. I like my cakes to be either light and fine-textured, or very rich and dense (like a flourless chocolate cake or a cake made with almond paste). While this cake was moist, it had that unsatisfying texture that is neither springy nor fudgy. Also, the flavor was not that interesting. You could taste the citrus, but I think I would have liked this better with a big dash of almond extract to boost the almond flavor. I wouldn't make this cake again. It wasn't bad, but it was pretty boring.
Recipe: "Hazelnut Citrus Torte" by Melissa Clark, from The New York Times.
The recipe calls for either hazelnut flour or almond flour and I decided to use almond flour since I was low on hazelnuts. To make the torte, you whip egg yolks with sugar until thick and pale; add oil, lemon zest, lemon juice, and orange juice; fold in the dry ingredients (sugar, nut flour, and quinoa flour); and incorporate egg whites that have been beaten with salt and sugar to stiff peaks. I poured the batter into a cheesecake pan with a removable bottom that I had greased and lined with parchment. I used a loose-bottom pan instead of a springform pan because cakes are usually more difficult to release from a springform.
I walked away for a bit and when I came back, I saw that the sides of the torte were no longer stuck to the sides of the pan. Instead, the bottom of the pan -- with the cake still attached -- had come loose and the cake was resting directly on the cooling rack. I turned the cake right-side up immediately, but the pattern of parallel lines from my cooling rack was already imprinted on top of the cake, as you can see in the photo above. There might have actually been a benefit to the cake falling out of the pan and onto the rack, because the torte ended up pretty level in the end.
I thought this torte was okay. The texture was the sort of half-wet texture that you often find in cakes made with nut flour and leavened with eggs. I'm not a fan. I like my cakes to be either light and fine-textured, or very rich and dense (like a flourless chocolate cake or a cake made with almond paste). While this cake was moist, it had that unsatisfying texture that is neither springy nor fudgy. Also, the flavor was not that interesting. You could taste the citrus, but I think I would have liked this better with a big dash of almond extract to boost the almond flavor. I wouldn't make this cake again. It wasn't bad, but it was pretty boring.
Recipe: "Hazelnut Citrus Torte" by Melissa Clark, from The New York Times.
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