RUSTIC HAZELNUT CAKE
Ingredients:
300g room temperature unsalted BUTTER (=10,58oz= 1 ⅓ cups)
300g SUGAR (=10,58oz= 1 ½ cups)
300g PLAIN FLOUR (=10,58oz= 2 ⅓ cups)
300g HAZELNUTS (=10,58oz=2 ¼ cups)
4 EGGS
Method:
Finely grind hazelnuts.
Cream softened butter and sugar with a mixer for about 10 minutes. Add one egg at a time (add the following one only when the previous one has been completely absorbed). Add flour little by little, then gradually add ground hazelnuts.
Grease (I personally use a cooking spray on the sides and I cut a round piece of baking paper for the bottom, but you can decide to proceed in the traditional way with butter and flour) a 30 cm diameter aluminium tray and pour the mixture.
Flatten with a spatula and then bake in preheated oven at 210°C (410°F) for 30 minutes.
The rustic Hazelnut cake recipe comes from Roberto’s great-grandmother Rosa recipe book. She obviously didn’t use a mixer nor a grinder! She mixed all the ingredients at once in a bowl with a spoon. She used to keep a small piece of butter apart and then she decided if it was necessary or not: everything depended on the hazelnuts and on how much oil they would provide to the mixture.
Her cake had a different colour too: it looked a lot more brown as she used the hazelnuts she collected from her tree on the mountains, without peeling them.
You can add an envelope of vanilla-flavored baking powder as many people do. Rosa didn’t so I’m not doing it as well!
I’ve decided to call it rustic as it is a cake of peasant origin, as rustic as our lovely summers in Signatico (her village) are.
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