I wanted to try something a little different but it needed to be pretty and preferably contain chocolate. After the success of my chocolate and peanutbutter triple layer cake (probably my favourite cake in terms of texture and flavour, that I have made to date) I decided to combine chocolate with another nut. This time the hazelnut!
And here she is in all her glory!
The sponge contained ground hazelnuts and grated dark chocolate. This gave the vanilla sponge a lovely nutty, chocolaty flavour.
To make sure that the sponge was super moist, each layer was brushed with a home made amaretto syrup before assembling. I had tried to get hold of some Frangelico (hazelnut liqueur) but there really was none to be found! It didn't seem to affect the flavour of the cake. It just made the light sponge extremely moist. The syrup was essentially sugar and water simmered until the sugar had fully dissolved, left to cool and then with the addition of a few tablespoons of amaretto.
After the layers had been drizzled with the syrup I assembled the cake.
I made a rich chocolate fudge frosting to go in between the layers and on the outside of the cake. I also made some praline by making home made caramel, dropping hazelnuts into it and whizzing up to a fine power when solidified.
So this...
Turns into this...
This sweet, nutty powder is then sprinkled on top of the chocolate fudge frosting in between each layer.
This soaks up the chocolate fudge frosting and really, just melts into it. You can't detect that there is anything other than a slightly different flavoured frosting to the outside of the cake, when you bite into a slice. The frosting in the middle just takes on a sweeter, nuttier, hazelnut praline flavour.
I built up the layers and smoothed the chocolate fudge frosting onto the outside of the cake. It looked a bit like how I would imagine Miss Trunchbull's cake looked in the book 'Matilda' at this point. So I piped some of the frosting onto the bottom to neaten it up.
This is the bit where I sustained a caramel burn on my hand and realised that no mater how pretty and tasty spiked caramel hazelnuts are, I'm not entirely convinced I could be bothered to make them ever again.
First was the creation of the caramel.
Its just sugar and water. How difficult could that be? It turns out, its not that simple.
Its knowing when to take the caramel off the heat, too soon and its not caramel, not soon enough and it burns. I made two attempts. The first caught and burned and the second wasn't quite caramel enough but did set and tasted yummy. That'll do for me.
To make the caramel spikes you carefully insert skewers into your hazelnuts.
Then, when your caramel is ready, quickly dip the hazelnuts into the mixture, attempt not to burn yourself with the boiling hot caramel but ensure you are doing this quickly enough so that the caramel doesn't completely set before you get chance to dip all of your hazelnuts. Then, leave these hanging off the edge of your work surface with something heavy on top of the sticks to stop them falling off and lots of foil/paper/tea towels underneath to make sure you don't ruin your kitchen floor.
You may also wish to ensure that your kitten is not allowed access to the kitchen at this point as these searingly hot strings of caramel look like an awful lot of fun to a kitten. (a kitten and caramel related accident was thankfully averted. My little kitty did wander into the kitchen but thankfully I noticed him before he noticed the fun new caramel strings that were now hanging enticingly in the kitchen. Phew!)
Gosh that looks fun!
Then you let them harden. Several will fall apart, not look quite right or the spikes won't have developed. If you make sure that you do a lot more than you intend to use, you should have enough to top your cake. You should also make more than you need so that you can pop one in your mouth every now and then to keep your strength up during the mammoth task of constructing this dobber of a cake.
Then you need to cut the tails using scissors to the length you want them to be.
Then, hold your breath and remove the hazelnuts from their skewers and try and avoid thoughts like 'if this doesn't work now after all this I'm going to be really miffed'. Actually, I had no problems at this stage but really wasn't sure how easy it would be to get them off the sticks.
Then simply pop them on top of your cake!
Mmmmmm! Yum!
Then you just have to wait for your guests to arrive before you cut yourself a slice (its polite apparently)
Now time to try it...
The cake itself was very moist and rich with a lovely hazelnut and chocolate flavour. The fudge frosting in between the layers melted in the mouth and was a wonderfully rich and sweet hazelnut praline chocolate flavour. This contrasted well with the chocolate fudge frosting around the outside of the cake. The frosting was smooth, intensely chocolaty and very moreish and was the perfect partner to the extremely moist but light hazelnut chocolate cake.
The spiked hazelnut was also delicious to pop into your mouth. The sweet caramel encasing the whole hazelnut. Utterly delicious!
Of all the cakes I've made, this is certainly up there with the chocolate peanutbutter triple layer cake. Its rich, moist and sweet with a multitude of flavours and textures in each bite. Rich indulgent chocolate fudge frosting, moist but light hazelnut chocolate cake and sweet, nutty praline chocolate frosting. Mmmm... delicious.
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