Chocolate-nut cake "Velvet Night"

I can’t even believe that pastries can be made not from the usual flour, but using nuts crushed into crumbs and a small amount of rice flour or starch. Chocolate-nut cake "Velvet Night" turns out to be dark, buttery, extremely chocolatey, incredibly fragrant and extremely tasty.

Ingredients

• Dark chocolate - 130 g
• Butter (softened) - 80 g
• Eggs - 3 pcs.
• Sugar - 90 g
• Walnuts - 100 g
• Rice flour (or starch) - 40 g
• Baking powder - 0.5 tsp
• Cognac (rum) - 1 tbsp. the spoon
• For decoration:
• Chocolate - 40 g
• Walnuts - 20 g

Directions

1. Prepare all ingredients.
2. For the test, take any dark chocolate (I used chocolate with finely chopped walnuts).
3. For decoration, you can take any chocolate: black, milk, white.
4. Instead of rice flour, you can take starch, preferably corn starch.
5. Remove the butter from the refrigerator in advance and hold at room temperature until softened.
6. Turn on the oven to preheat to 175-180 degrees.
7. Select a few whole halves of walnuts for decoration, and grind the rest in a blender until fine crumbs.
8. Combine rice flour (or starch) with baking powder. Stir.
9. Break the dark chocolate into pieces and place in a heat-resistant deep bowl.
10. Melt the chocolate in a water bath or in the microwave (several pulses of 10-15 seconds are enough with stirring breaks).
11. Cool to room temperature.
12. Add sugar to softened butter.
13. Beat the butter and sugar with a mixer for 2-4 minutes, until smooth.
14. With the mixer running at low speed, add the eggs one at a time.
15. You should get a lush air mass.
16. Add cooled melted chocolate. Mix with a mixer at low speed until smooth.
17. Add chopped walnuts and cognac. Stir with a spatula.
18. Stir in the rice flour and baking powder mixture. Stir with a spatula.
19. For baking, I use a 23x10 cm rectangular silicone mold that does not need to be greased. If you have a ceramic or iron mold, cover it with parchment.
20. Put the dough into the form.
21. Bake the cake at 175-180 degrees for 35-45 minutes (depending on the power of your oven). Check readiness with a wooden skewer - it should come out of the cake dry.
22. Remove the finished cake from the oven and leave in the form to cool.
23. Then carefully remove the cake from the mold and place on a serving platter.
24. Melt the chocolate to decorate the cupcake.
25. Pour the melted chocolate over the cupcake (if the chocolate does not pour, grease). Place walnut halves on top.
26. If desired, you can simply sprinkle the cake with powdered sugar.
27. Chocolate-nut cake "Velvet Night" is ready to serve.