Valentine’s Day Raffaello Cake

Valentine’s Day in Germany is as popular as in the USA. It is celebrated with flowers, dinner for two, delicous cakes and desserts, romantic getaways, and special Valentine gifts. The Raffaello cake or tart is a special combination of raspberries, heavy cream and “Raffaellos” from Ferrero, an Italian company who became popular with Nutella, Mon Cheri and Raffaello since 1989. It is a ball where a whole almond is plunged into a delicious creamy filling and enclosed in a crispy shell, covered in flakes of coconut. The cake makes a great addition to a Valentine’s day menu.
Find more recipes at www.MybestGermanRecipes.com

Ingredients
1-2 tbsp Butter
50 g + 1 tbsp grated coconut (unsweetened and natural)
4 medium sized eggs
125 g soft butter
125 g + 1 tbsp sugar
1 sachet vanilla sugar
100 g flour
2,5 tbsp baking powder
250 g fresh or frozen raspberries
22 Raffaello balls (2 packages)
500 g heavy cream
2 Sahnesteif (keeps the heavy cream firm)- find it here at German Deli
100 g apricot jam

How you’ll make it
– Heat oven to 175 °C, 375 F
– With butter grease a spring form (diameter 26 cm).
– Roast 50 g grated coconut in a pan without adding any butter or oil until they are golden (low heat)
– Separate eggs.
– Mix butter, 125 g sugar and vanilla sugar until creamy; add egg yolks one after the other; then add flour, baking powder and roasted coconut.
– Beat egg white until firm and carefully mix it with the dough.
– Fill the dough into the form and bake it for 20-30 minutes; let it cool off. This is your biscuit cake.
– Defrost raspberries, wash fresh raspberries, and remove bad ones.
– Take the biscuit cake, and with a spoon take out the inside of the cake but leave an edge all around of about 1cm. 
– Crumble the cake.
– Take 14 Raffaellos and chop them coarsely; beat heavy cream, add sugar and whip-it.
– Mix chopped Raffaellos and raspberries with the firm heavy cream.
– Mix half of the raspberry cream with half of the cake crumbs, put it on the middle of the biscuit cake and shape it like a dome. Spread the other half of the cream around it.
– Heat jam and spread it around the cake; softly press remaining crumbs onto the edges (they will stick on the jam).
– Cut remaining Raffaellos in half (if you look closely you will see on each Raffaello a joint, and here you would place the knife and cut it.
– Decorate the tart with the Raffaello halves and raspberries, sprinkle 1 tbsp grated coconut over it.

Recipe from http://marionkreativ.blogspot.com/2009/06/raffaello-torte.html