Hazelnut Gateau Cake

This recipe is kinda overdue as I had a tough time find Hazelnut coating chocolate. I checked a few baking supplies shop and they didn't carry it. Neither did a supplier I got from Richard have it. Hence, I settled down to a modification that I did with pre-packed Hazelnut Ganache I bought from Phoon Huat. This cake has it's twist that I tried, shying away from my usual style.

1) It's a two tiered cake!

2) I did a plain sponge cake with chocolate cream to get a contrast!

This cake is just pretty even though I've got some piping skills to refine XD This cake takes about 3 -4 hours to bake for a beginner.. It took me about 2 hours to bake (: Practice makes perfect! I labelled this cake as a level 5 difficulty cake as it's two tiered. You can make it single tiered and it'll be simpler at a level 4 difficulty cake! (:

This is the other version I did previously with hazelnut coating chocolate..

Hazelnut Gateau Cake Recipe

This cake yields a 2 tiered 15cm and 13cm cake

Ingredients:

75g butter

75g plain flour

3 eggs (I used 60g Seng Choon Eggs)

75g sugar

220ml whipping cream

140g dark coverture chocolate

80g dark coverture chocolate

60g fellutine

50g hazelnut ganache

5g dark coverture chocolate

Steps:

For this version of the cake, ingredients remain the same.. except that the cake is baked in a loaf tin and 'cut' with the cake ring of this shape. Assembly is the same (just single layered) instead of 2 layers. 

Preheat the oven to 160 degree Celsius. Sift the plain flour.

Line the baking tins (from Daiso) with baking paper.

Melt the butter. I used LIV Salted butter and melted it in the microwave oven in 10 second intervals. 

Add the sugar to the eggs.

Whisk the eggs and sugar on high till stiff peaks are formed.

Whisk!

Whisk more!

You should get a pale batter which forms stiff peaks.

Fold in the flour and melted butter. This video will give you a better idea of how to do it by hand! 

Pour the batter into the 2 moulds. Bake for 15 - 20 minutes or till toothpick comes our clean from the centre of cake. Remove cake quickly from mould and set on a cake board. Allow cake to cool while covered in a cake caddy to prevent loss of moisture.

The fellutine and hazelnut ganache.

This is the 80g of chocolate for the fellutine to give the cake the awesome crunch. Melt it in the microwave at intervals of 10 seconds till 1/2 melted.

This is good enough. Just remove from microwave and stir. Chocolate will continue melting.

All melted! 

Add in the fellutine and mix well.

Line a plate with cling wrap to aid in easier cleaning! Spread the fellutine mixture on the plate and refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Whip up the whipped cream till stiff peaks form!

Melt the 140g of chocolate for the chocolate filling using a double boiler or the microwave.

Mix well and allow to cool.

Add chocolate to whipped cream.

Mix well!

Split the chocolate whipped cream into 2 portions, 1 for covering the cake (Plain) and 1 for addition of fellutine.

Break up most of the fellutine leaving enough for 8 small balls (decoration).

Roll up the 8 small balls and refrigerate.

Add broken fellutine into 1 portion of chocolate whipped cream.

Mix well.

For the base of the second tier cake, I cut a piece of cardboard and wrapped it in aluminium foil to act as a cake board.

This is how I stored the cake before working on the assembly!

I used thick bubble tea straws as support for the second tier!

This is the spray bottle I used to store my sugar solution made up of boiling 1 part water to 1 part sugar. This sugar solution is sprayed onto the cake layers to keep it moist.

Layer 1! Trim off the top part of the cake as this portion tends to be the driest.

Layer the cake into 2 layers.

My 2 layers.

Spray the cake with some sugar solution and apply a layer of cream, about 1/2 of the chocolate mixture filled with fellutine.

Top with second layer and spray a lil' more sugar solution. 

Coat the cake with the plain chocolate cream. Reserve a small portion of plain chocolate cream to use for piping the 'seams' between the cakes.

Allow cake to set in the freezer/chiller while working on the next layer.

Repeat steps for assembly of second tier.

Once tier one has set, push 3 trimmed straws into the centre of the cake to spread out the weight of the second tier.

Stack! Allow entire cake to set in the chiller/freezer while preparing hazelnut ganache.

Heat up the hazelnut ganache in the microwave for 10 seconds before using. Spread hazelnut ganache on top layer of cake and allow some to flow down the sides. Pipe some of the plain chocolate cream between the 2 tiers to 'hide' the 'seams'.

Melt up the 5g of chocolate in the microwave oven or double boiler. This acts as the 'ink' for designs. Snip a small part of the piping bag to determine size of tip.

Pipe! 

I also piped a little of the plain chocolate cream under the fellutine balls to hold it in place. Hope that you'll enjoy this cake! (:

The cross section of the cake! (: LOVE the colour contrast!

A slice of goodness! 

Enjoy the cake as much as I did! (:

I'd love to see the bakes or stuff you've cooked using the blog's recipe! Do share photos of stuff you've baked or cooked using the blog's recipe with me either via FB message to http://facebook.com/limcynthia OR http://facebook.com/thebakingbiatch OR via email at cynthia.lim.hl@gmail.com! I look forward to hearing from you! (: