Making Rehrücken 1

I say this a lot, but it bears repeating: the biggest secret to making great pastry is leaving yourself plenty of time to perform all the tasks involved. Trying to cram everything into one afternoon on the day of your dinner party is a recipe for disaster. Which is why a conscientious baker takes care to spread out the phases of an ambitious cake over several days. A project like a rehrücken should be a two-day affair: components on day one, building on day two. Not because you’ll need all day to do either, but because you’ll have the space and time to concentrate on doing each part well. There, sermon over. On to the cake. Start by preheating your oven to 400. Next, prepare your pan. A rehrücken pan like this can be acquired quite cheaply online:

Grease it with butter…

Then pour in some flour and tap it around until all the contours are coated.

Now lay out your almonds on a sheet pan and toast about 10 minutes until just barely browned, about like so:

Pour those into a food processor along with the flour, baking powder and instant coffee.

Process until the nuts are ground finely.

Chop the crystallized ginger…

…combine it with the flour mixture in a bowl…

…and whisk it all together. Set the mixture aside while you prepare the chocolate.

Combine the chopped chocolate and butter in a bowl and zap it in a microwave on high for 10 seconds. Repeat until the chocolate is mostly melted, then stir until it’s all smooth.

Like so. The chocolate should be barely warm to the touch. With your pan and components ready, you can proceed to the mixing.

Combine your eggs and sugar in the bowl of a mixer fitted with the whip (notice I have five eggs here…I was experimenting with a larger quantity of batter…in reality you only need four).

Whip until the mixture is very light and thick, about 12 minutes.

With the machine running, add the chocolate mixture. Dude! Where’s my volume? It’s toast, kiddo, but don’t worry, everything’s alright. That’s just the way the rehrücken crumbles.

Now add the almond mixture all at once…

…and fold it in.

Scrape the mixture into your pan…

…and bake for 50 minutes, until a knife insert in the center of the cake comes out clean.

Allow the cake to cool completely on a rack. You can leave it out on the counter in the mold overnight, no problem. Now go relax, there’s a football game on.