Chef Sandy attempts one of Gramma's recipes

 Hullo! Today we are in the kitchen attempting to bake one of Gramma's cakes. Well, really, it's one of Great-Gramma's cake!! It's a flour-less Nußkuchen (nut cake)

We have the ground hazelnuts (250 grams). We used the Moulinex julienne hand grinder... great fun and strong forearms in the humans...

Most Moulinex come with only 5 blades but we have a different blade... one just for Nußkuchen!

We also need 1 cup of sugar...

And we have the Bitter-mandel aroma (bitter-almond aroma). 

You can also use rum aroma, but we have bitter-mandel soooo... that's what we use!

Now... we have tried this cake in the past with Rose's Mom and it's been an epic failure. The first step is to beat the eggs schaumig (frothy) and add the sugar bit by bit... It's always been a flop for us. But ChatGPT suggested warming the eggs for a bit in warm water. Apparently cold eggs do not like to get frothy... Chef Ben probably knows this already...

The other kicker for us has been the hand mixer... Gramma swore that most hand mixers have goofy blades that will not beat eggs into submission (or frothiness)... But then she found a hand mixer at Canadian Tire that worked... so we kept her hand mixer after she passed...

Alright... bowl is clean and ready to go!

Wish me luck!!

Right... 4 eggs... The recipe calls for 5 but that's for the round spring-form pan version, which looks like this...  It was always a birthday cake when Mama was growing up... we will try it once we work the kinks out!

Today, we are doing Gramma's short-cut version... in a loaf pan. Rightho... eggs are waiting for us... let's get started...

Is that froth I see forming????

Oh my goodness... I think it is!!!!

ChatGPT said it would froth up and get lighter in colour!

Oh my goodness... well, it has increased in volume... so that is much better than previous attempts! We added the few drops of bitter almond flavour... and a dash of salt and...

We are calling that... good enough!

Then we fold in the ground hazelnuts...

Wow... that... actually looks excellent!

We have parchment paper lining the loaf pan... and we poured the batter in and baked at 350 for 40-45 minutes.

Um. Well. Wow...

This is actually quite good!!!

Now getting it off the parchment paper was not easy... but more nibbles for the chef to sample. All agreed it was most excellent!! Nice and light and fluffy and moist... not heavy and moist!