We spent the May bank holiday weekend this year at my parents house in Shropshire. I worked out that we would be there for my mom's birthday so of course I would have to make her a spectacular cake!
Her favourite chocolate bar in the world is Cadbury's Whole Nut...so I used that as my inspiration and the cake evolved from there!
The chocolate-hazelnut cake is made without any butter at all and the batter consists mainly of whipped eggs -the batter triples in size the longer you whip the eggs! I had never made a cake using this method before and I actually loved it! It was so fast and easy and the cake was unbelievably light and airy!
The original recipe I was following filled the insides as well as the outsides with chocolate nutella frosting but I decided that might be too rich, so I whipped up some light and fluffy coconut frosting to go in between the cake layers and kept the creamy dreamy nutella frosting just for the outside of the cake!
The cake was finished off with some chunks of whole nut chocolate and some chopped hazelnuts coating the outside.
It was super delicious, and a must for any chocolate & hazelnut lover in your life!!
Also, I was featured last week as a top UK food blogger and if you head over to the site there's an interesting little infographic about reasons why people blog - I'm definitely motivated by food being my passion!!
Chocolate-Hazelnut Nutella & Coconut Whole Nut Layer Cake:
Serves 12-14
Adapted from Let the Baking Begin!
for the cake:
7 large eggs
1/2 cup caster sugar
2 cups finely ground hazelnuts
3 tbsp plain flour
3 tbsp cocoa powder
3 tsp baking powder
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Line 2 8 inch round cake tins with parchment paper and butter.
In a medium size bowl, sieve the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder together. Stir in ground nuts.
Whip the eggs on high speed in a free standing mixer, until frothy. Slowly add the sugar and continue whipping until the mix has tripled in volume, for approx. 5 mins.
Fold dry ingredients into the eggs, in 3 additions.
Divide the batter evenly between the tins and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a knife inserted comes out clean.
Once baked, leave in the pan for 5 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.
Cut each cake in half again so that you have four cakes.
for the coconut filling:
465g icing sugar
150g unsalted butter
50ml coconut milk
Beat half of the icing sugar together with the butter in a free standing mixer. Start on low, and turn to high until they have come together.
Add the remainder of the icing sugar and beat until incorporated.
Beat in the coconut milk.
Turn the mixer to high speed, and continue to beat for 5 minutes until the frosting is light and fluffy.
for the nutella frosting:
200g unsalted butter
1 1/4 cup chopped dark chocolate
1/2 cup nutella
Melt chocolate in microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring in between each time until completely melted.
Let cool to room temperature.
Whip butter, chocolate and nutella together until combined.
for decoration:
4 tbsp coconut filling
4 tbsp nutella frosting
12 single squares whole nut chocolate
1 double rectangle whole nut chocolate
1/2 - 3/4 cup chopped hazelnuts
To assemble:
Spread a thick layer of coconut filling in between each layer of cake. Once all four layers have been assembled, cover the entire top and sides of the cake in the nutella frosting.
Cover the bottom half of the cake in the chopped hazelnuts by grabbing handfuls of the nuts and sticking them to the frosting.
In a small bowl, mix together the coconut filling and nutella frosting.
Spoon it into a piping bag fitted with a star tip. Pipe 12 swirls - try and evenly pipe 6 swirls on each side of the cake in a symmetrical pattern.
Stick a piece of whole nut chocolate in each swirl.
Pipe a larger swirl in the middle of the cake and stick a double piece of whole nut chocolate in the centre.
Eat and enjoy!
WAHOO!! This cake looks so dang good. LOVE the way the top looks.
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