chocolate-hazelnut meringue cake

for this very special birthday, I bake two cakes a year, and this stupendous chocolate meringue cake served to bring in the new year.

as adapted by countless people from a martha stewart recipe, this basically is a flourless chocolate torte with a chewy chocolate-toasted hazelnut pavlova on top. the base gets baked while you prepare the meringue, and then it all finishes in the oven so the meringue gets crisp outside and moist within.

my meringue collapsed in the middle with a high perimeter, making for a very homey cake (that meringue top makes for a very good candle base too). it was rich and chocolatey and ohsocreamy, but I’ll dial the sugar down the next time. my changes included swapping baileys in for rum, and making only 2/3 of the recipe, which was still quite a lot of cake.

update: can’t stop eating it cold out of the fridge. thank goodness (ohmygod why didn’t I?) I didn’t make the full recipe.