Hnallþóra: Chocolate cake with meringue and berries
On celebratory occasions in Iceland you can often find particularly tall, opulent, richly decorated multi-tiered cakes on the cake buffet, with lots of meringue, cream, syrup, fruit...
Such a cake is called "Hnallþóra" in Icelandic, after a character in the novel by Halldór Laxness.
These cakes come in many different versions,
e.g. with bananas, chocolate cream, berries and coconut flakes, chocolate meringue with cream and chocolate icing, or with fluffy dough with lots of cream, rose water and fruit liqueur... Definitely with lots of cream, lots of sugar, if in doubt also with lots of syrup and lots Fruit. More is more!
For the 80th birthday of the Icelandic Republic on June 17, 2024, I also baked such a "Hnallþóra" in a version as a chocolate cake with meringue, cream and berries.
Ingredients
120 g soft butter
260 g white sugar
4 eggs (to separate)
120 g flour
20 g baking cocoa
1.5 tsp baking powder
1 pinch of ground vanilla
75 ml milk
100 g chopped dark chocolate
Ingredients for the filling:
500 ml whipping cream
30 g powdered sugar
500 g berries
Preparation
Preheat the oven to 350 °F (180 °C) upper/lower heat.
Separate the eggs.
In a tall mixing bowl (clean and fat-free), beat the egg whites with 160 g of sugar until the mixture is really stiff. Then set the egg whites aside.
In a bowl, mix the 120 g soft butter with 100 g sugar with the mixer until a creamy mixture is formed.
Then add four egg yolks one after the other and mix everything well.
Add the flour, baking powder, cocoa and grated vanilla and mix everything thoroughly.
Finally add the milk and chopped chocolate and stir in.
Then divide the cocoa dough into 2 springform pans (20 cm in diameter) lined with baking paper.
Then put the egg whites on the two cake bases and bake in the preheated oven at 350 °F (180 °C) upper and lower heat for about 30 to 35 minutes.
Remove the baked bases from the oven and let them cool completely.
Beat the cream with the powdered sugar until stiff.
Set aside 200 g of the berries for decoration.
Chop the remaining berries and mix with the whipping cream.
Place the first layer on a cake plate, spread with half of the cream and berry mixture...
Spread the remaining cream and berry mixture on top and decorate with the berries that were initially set aside.
Then decorate to your heart's content and serve well chilled in small pieces.
Happy 80th birthday, Iceland!
[Translated from here.]
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