Hello everyone. A few days ago I made a cake for my husband's birthday. I started in the evening and I finished it after midnight. It was a very long evening for me. In the end, the effort paid off, although I thought I would throw the cake and buy another one because of the difficulties I encountered during the preparation. 😊 My husband loves hazelnuts, so he wanted a cake with chopped hazelnuts that is not too sweet and I wanted to make his wish come true.
I thought for a long time about what kind of cake I could make, and then I invented the recipe myself and started.
I bought 100g of roasted hazelnuts and 100g of raw hazelnuts.
I ground the raw hazelnuts and chopped the roasted hazelnuts.
Then I started to make the first crust. I beat two egg whites with two tablespoons of sugar.
I added half a tablespoon of flour and 3 tablespoons of ground hazelnuts and mixed everything with a whisk.
Then I poured the mixture onto baking paper and put it in the oven at 180 degrees.
I left the crust to bake a little longer and it was a complete fiasco. The crust was so overbaked that I couldn't separate it from the baking paper. It broke into pieces.
And I started to get nervous and think about going to the store to buy a cake. But I decided to continue, not knowing what the result would be. I made the next crust in the same way, but I baked it for a shorter time. I barely separated the second crust from the baking paper, so I only got parts of it. It was too thin, although softer than the previous one.
When I lost hope that my attempt would result in a cake, I remembered a crust recipe that has proven to be good many times. For this crust you need:
4 egg whites
1 yolk
4 tablespoons of sugar
2 tablespoons of flour
I started whipping egg whites with sugar and finally added egg yolk, flour and ground hazelnuts that were left over. I baked a crust that turned out fantastic and that encouraged me to continue.
I divided the crust into two parts.
I made a cream from the remaining egg yolks.
You cook the cream in the following way. Boil 300 ml of milk with 3 spoons of sugar and vanilla sugar, and combine 100 ml of milk with egg yolks and 5 spoons of flour. When the milk boils, pour in the yolk mixture and mix until the cream becomes thick. Remove from heat and add 125g of margarine or butter and then mix until it has a nice texture.
Now whip 500g of whipping cream with two tablespoons of powdered sugar and vanilla sugar.
Put chopped hazelnuts in one half of this white cream and chopped dark chocolate in the other but leave some whipping cream for coating in the end.
And finally we got to layering the crusts and coating. First, I spread yellow cream on half of the crust.
Then I spread the cream of chopped hazelnuts and arranged one of those thin crusts broken into pieces, like a puzzle. 😊 On top of that puzzle crust, I again spread yellow cream, then cream with chopped chocolate, and then I put another puzzle thin crust.
I don't like to throw away what I make, especially if it's tasty even if it doesn't look pretty. I tried to use everything.
Then I again spread the yellow cream, then the cream with hazelnuts and put the other half of the crust.
I put the rest of the cream with chopped chocolate over it and covered the cake with whipping cream.
When it cooled down and we cut pieces to try, we concluded that we had never eaten a more delicious cake than this one.
I can't describe in words the perfection of delicate hazelnut flavor and nice creams with a crunchy middle crust without excessive sweetness.
Because of the difficulties I had with the crusts, I was very skeptical and did not believe that I would ever make this cake again, but its perfect taste makes me want to do it again very soon. And my family wants that too. 😊
Thank you very much for reading.
The images and writing are original and mine.
Greetings!
Jelena