When I say Caprese, nearly everyone things about salad. The also typical tomato and mozzarella slices with basil and olive oil. That’s right. And I love it. But even in the northern parts of Italy they never have heard about this very typical, very yummy, very light cake from Naples with the same name. Though it’s a very famous one and very often eaten.
When I first talked to friends here in Italy they looked at me like I would have soap for breakfast. How can you bake a Caprese? Well, and again I notice how different we are in one country. Many things I am used to, I don’t find in the north and very often, when I talk about something that seems very normal to me for the people here in the north it seems strange. In particular many things around the kitchen.
A Caprese cake is made of almonds, sugar (in my case honey or maple syrup), chocolate, butter (ghee) and some eggs. That’s it. Nothing more. All well mixed together and baked. A little icing sugar on the top for decoration and voilà! We have a nice almond chocolate cake that will intrigue everyone.
The cake for a real Italian dessert feeling!
- 150 gr almonds
- 140 gr dark chocolate
- 130 gr coconut flower sugar
- 100 gr grassfed butter or ghee
- 3 eggs (yolks and whites)
- icing sugar for decoration
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F.
- In a sauce pan add the sugar, the butter and the chocolate and on low heat melt the ingredients and mix until they are perfectly combined.
- Add the almonds in a blender and blend until they are getting a rough almond meal.
- Transfer the almonds in a bowl and add the chocolate-butter-sugar-mixture. Stir well.
- Add the egg yolks one by one and mix them well in the batter.
- Beat the egg whites until they are stiff.
- Fold the beaten egg whites into the chocolate batter.
- Transfer the Caprese batter into a 7" cake pan and level.
- Transfer into the oven and bake for 35-40 minutes. After 30 minutes do the tooth pick proof, when it comes out clean, turn off the oven and take the cake out after a couple of minutes.
- Let the Caprese cool out for 10 minutes and then put it up-side down on a cake plate. When it's really cool decorate with some icing-sugar.
On the Icing sugar you can also decorate with some cocao.
Don't blend the almonds too finely, they are best in the cake when they are still a little rough.