This chocolate cake has a sweet nutty pecan flavour and a moist mousse-like consistency. As far as cakes go, it is easy to make, and reliably impresses. It is naturally gluten free so a good option for a shared meal. It is pretty amazing eaten when still warm, however is excellent the next day, so a good option if you want to bake ahead. Leave it out of the fridge and serve with fresh cream.

Fresh pecan meal may not be the easiest product to find in a shop. I am lucky and have a yearly harvest from 20 pecan trees (and a new pecan cracker for anyone who was following my new-to-pecan-farming woes last year). Any fresh nut meal, or byproduct from nut milk making, will do -  the main difference is that fresh nut meal has more moisture and has lots of oil in it, as opposed to dry nut meal you might buy. So if you are not into nut milk making, and don't want to make your own fresh pecan meal, then you just need to add some yoghurt and oil to your shop bought nut meal to make up the moisture content as detailed in the recipe.

As an alternative for decorating with nuts, try crumbling a small handful of frozen raspberries on top of the cake prior to baking.

Chocolate pecan torte recipe 

Serves 12

Ingredients

175g 70% cocoa chocolate

100g salted butter

2/3 cup raw sugar

1/3 cup good quality cocoa, sifted

1 1/4 cup fresh pecan meal (or 1 1/3 cup dry nut meal such as almond + 3 tbs Greek yoghurt + 2 tbs olive oil)

6 egg white

4 egg yolk

12 whole pecans to decorate

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and butter a spring form round cake tin (I use a 23cm tin).

2. Place the chocolate and butter in a double saucepan and melt.

3. Remove from the heat and stir in the sugar, cocoa, fresh pecan meal and the 4 egg yolks.

4. In a separate bowl, whisk the 6 egg whites until firm. Fold through the chocolate mix until uniform (goal - not to lose all the volume - be gentle).

5. Place in the tin, decorate with whole pecans. Bake 30 minutes. The cake should be firm but soft to the touch in the middle.

6. Let the cake cool for 15 minutes before taking out of the tin.