This was an interesting-looking recipe, including lemon and orange rind, walnuts, butter, eggs, rice flour and sugar, as well as the poppy seeds and apple.
It was enjooyable to make. The only annoying thing during te preparation phase was that I went all the way to the supermarket to pick up poppyseeds and almond essence, onlly to find out that even though I bought two "big" packs of poppyseeds, there weren't as many as the recipe called for - I was 50g short, but for my taste there were still too many and I intend to cut back on poppyseeeds if I make this again. Secondly, the supermarket didn't have any almond essence either. So I went without that.
Typical of me, I had a struggle keeping a big rectangular flattish cake whole as got it out of the tin. Fortunately, I'm only offering tasting sized samples, so nobody has to be impressed with the look of the cake as a whole. But the break was a bit of a downer.
Texture was nice and smooth - because the TMX milled everything down so beautifully, you only get the taste of the poppyseeds, rind and walnuts, not any separate textures. The dark colour was unusual, and did not lead you nicely into the pleasantly light most cake.
I made this cake for gluten-free guests, who have often had Torte Caprese. It was a definite change, but it wasn't quite up to the pleasure of the Torte Caprese.
I wish the recipe had made suggestions or given instructions for a frosting for this cake. I think it needs frosting to look more attractive and decadent, to tempt the palate..