Amaretto Chocolate Decadence

Yet another birthday celebration at work! You would think I work in a really large group, but I don’t. Really, there are only about 20 of us all together! This cake originally called for Kahlua, which I thought I had on hand but I didn’t. I substituted amaretto and I hoped it would taste ok. I hoped that the amaretto wouldn’t clash with the ground pecans in the batter. They didn’t and this cake was very decadent, just like the name!

This recipe was odd in that you let the cake cool completely in the pan. I thought that was strange and almost didn’t follow that in the recipe but I am glad that I took their advice. This cake was super delicate and every time I touched it little bits of the edges crumbled away. I think that it would have completely fallen to pieces if I had removed the sides of the springform pan before it was cool. As it was, when I removed the bottom of the pan it cracked fairly significantly. Luckily it was so moist that I could just press it back together and it seemed to hold.

Another oddity of the recipe was that you were supposed to stir additional liquor into the 2 oz. of melted chocolate that you drizzled over the top of the cake. Well, when I stirred the amaretto in to the melted chocolate, it curdled! Eek! So I’m really happy that I have extra chocolate of hand since I had to melt some more for the topping. I decided to leave it as is and not add amaretto. Perhaps the cake was less boozy, but I figured that was ok since I would be serving it at work.

As delicate at this cake was, it was so good. It had a fabulous fudgy melt-in-your-mouth consistency. It was pretty tricky to cut, since it was delicate around the sides and fudgy in the center. I think I liked the amaretto better than I would have liked the Kahlua. This was the perfect rich chocolate cake with great flavor and texture. I think it would work well with any liquor. (I almost used Grand Mariner, I’m sure that would have been good too.)

½ cup butter

6 oz. bittersweet baking chocolate

3 eggs

¾ cup sugar

1-1/4 cups finely ground pecans

2 tablespoons flour

3 tablespoons amaretto

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 oz. bittersweet baking chocolate

Powdered Sugar

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter a 9-inch springform pan.

Melt the butter and 6 oz. chocolate in a double boiler, set aside to cool. In a large mixer bowl, beat eggs and sugar on high for 3 minutes, until light and lemon colored. Stir together ground pecans and flour and then gradually add this to the egg mixture.

Stir the amaretto and vanilla into the cooled chocolate mixture, and then gradually beat the chocolate into the egg/pecan mixture. Stir until well combined. Pour the batter into the prepared springform pan and bake 35-45 minutes until the top is set. Cool completely in the pan.

After the cake is cooled, remove from the pan. Melt the 2 oz. chocolate and drizzle on top of the cake, and then sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Recipe adapted from The Favorite Brand Name Bake Sale Cookbook