German chocolate cake 

Have you ever heard of Spit Cakes? This term identifies a variety of European desserts, all made in the same way: layers of dough are gradually wrapped around a cylindrical tool and cooked on a spit, or baked in the oven one at a time and overlapped with each other. The baumkuchen, a dessert of German origin, is the emblem of Spit Cakes! The name literally means "tree cake" because in the original form, made in the workshops, once baked and sliced horizontally, the various layers are revealed, like tree growth rings. Today I want to offer you a homemade version of baumkuchen that does not require any special tools and can be easily made at home using a cake mold and the grill of the oven! Made up of about twenty layers of a fluffy marzipan dough covered in dark chocolate, baumkuchen is a super delicious snack! Nowadays this dessert is also prepared in Trentino, Austria and Japan and everyone makes their favorite variant. I suggest the one that satisfied our taste buds the most! Make the baumkuchen yourself for an unusual and special snack that will amaze your guests as soon as you cut the first slice!

Ingredients

100 gr. dark chocolate

100 gr. softened butter 

160 gr. icing sugar

7 eggs, egg whites separated and beaten until stiff

150 gr. flour

60 gr. apricot jam

1.25 dl. lightly whipped cream

60 gr. chocolate pralines

Procedure

Melt the chocolate in a baking dish in a preheated oven at 170°C. In a bowl, beat the butter together with the sugar, the chocolate egg yolks that you have previously melted and let cool. Knead the mixture for about 20 minutes, or until you get a homogeneous and smooth cream, then add the beaten egg whites and the sifted flour. Grease a mold of about 18 cm in diameter, and sprinkle it with flour, pour the mixture into it and bake in a preheated oven at 180°C for about 40 minutes, depending on the oven. The cake will be cooked when you see that the cake will shrink slightly from the sides of the pan, or if you insert a toothpick it will come out clean. Once the cake is baked, take it out of the oven and let it cool for another 10 minutes in the pan, then turn it upside down on a wire rack and let it cool completely. Cut the cake in half horizontally. Spread the bottom layer with apricot jam and cover with half of the cream. Now overlap the other disc of dough and cover with the rest of the cream. Garnish the surface of the cake with the chocolate pralines.