Hazelnut and Chocolate Cake

Our neighbours invited us for a farewell BBQ last weekend. On asking what we could bring, the request was ‘cake would be good’! I don’t get the chance to bake a cake very often so this was rather a blessing. Finally a chance to get my baking skills up to date! The BBQ has something to be desired but my cake was at least delicious. In fact, it was probably a bit overdone for this. Anyway the main thing is I got to ply with chocolate and more chocolate.

Ingredients

Cake

250 gr dark chocolate

200 gr roasted hazelnuts (ground)

7 eggs (separated)

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

120ml espresso coffee

125 gr butter

120 gr caster sugar

Chocolate Icing

200 gr dark chocolate

100 gr fresh cream

Decoration

50 gr chocolate coated roasted hazelnuts

Hazelnut brittles

Steps: Cake

1. In a heavy based pot add the butter, chopped chocolate, vanilla essence and espresso coffee and stir until it forms a good consistency. Leave to cool
2. Heat the oven to 180 degree Celcius
3. Prepare the baking tray – use baking paper to line the bottom and side or simply use some butter
4. Beat the egg whites until soft peaks are formed. Set aside in the fridge
5. Beat the egg yolks and the caster sugar until creamy.
6. Add the chocolate mixture little by little and mix well.
7. Add the ground hazelnut into the dough and make sure that it is thoroughly incorporated
8. Add the beaten egg whites into the dough, little by little and combine it together gently
9. Pour the dough into the prepared baking tray
10. Bake in the preheated oven for 40 minutes. To keep the cake moist, I put a tray of water at the bottom of the oven to create a bit of steam
11. To test if the cake is ready, insert a bamboo stick into the middle of the cake and check if it is clean. When clean, the cake is ready, when it is still sticky bake it for a bit longer
12. Cool the cake on a wire rack      

Steps: Chocolate Icing

1. Bring the cream into a boil on a medium heat.
2. Take the cream away from the stove and add the chopped dark chocolate and mix until all the chocolate pieces are melted and it becomes a smooth consistency
3. Spread the icing over the cooled cake (you might want to wait for a few minutes until the icing cool down a bit before spreading it on the cake)

Steps: Decoration

1. Add the extra roasted hazelnut into the left over chocolate icing to coat and place them on top of the cake as desired
2. Decorate the side of the cake with the hazelnut brittles (optional)

Leave the cake to cool in the fridge overnight (or least for several hours) until the chocolate has set.