I had high hopes for this cake. After all I love all the main ingredients. Nectarines are my FAVORITE summer fruit. Hands-down. No question.
I adore almonds.
I love chocolate.
I get excited about cooking with alternative flours and not using wheat flour. I know. I'm a bit strange.
I am really digging the gorgeous photos in
La Tartine Gourmande and almost every page within makes me want to run into the kitchen and cook. Like absolutely right then and there. And there are not many cookbooks that do this to me.
Note in the ingredients photo below, the upper left corner where the cookbook is open and you can see how lovely Ms. Peltre's cake turned out.
Warning: You will be disappointed when you see my version. But I'm all for full disclosure. Things aren't perfect over here and I think it's helpful to share the real stuff that goes on. Triumphs as well as sunken chocolate cakes.
Cinnamon sugar nectarines. OMG! I could have stopped righ there and eaten the entire pan myself. But I told myself I must resist. Resist for the sake of the children who want an almond chocolate cake. Oh, but I am weak and who wil notice if a few slices are missing?
Oh they were GOOD!
But then this is how my cake turned out. Bleh. Sunken in
the middle....
with nectarines slices all the way on the bottom. Double bleh.
I ended up throwing this in the garbage after it sat on the counter for a few days with no one really wanting to eat at it. The kids didn't think it was chocolatey enough to have "chocolate" in the title or do eat that as their one allotted dessert item of the day. I nibbled on it here and there but wasn't wowed by it so eventually stopped too. Was it because I used a 13"x4" pan instead of a 13.75" x 4.5" pan? Maybe. My pan doesn't seem THAT far off from the original to have made everything sink but how can I know for sure until I try it again with the correct size pan? So I'm now seeking the larger tart pan if anyone out there has one that they'd like to lend me for the cause.
It's so sad when good ingredients don't turn out as hoped. But I won't be down for long as I have some almond frangipane in the refrigerator and a batch of the pâté sucree (also from La Tartine Gourmande) in there too that I made this afternoon with which I will make a different nectarine dessert. Tomorrow is another day and it's going to be a delicious one!
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