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Flourless Chocolate Hazelnut Layer Cake - The Brick Kitchen
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Flourless Chocolate Hazelnut Layer Cake
Dense, nutty dark chocolate cake sandwiched with pillowy chocolate nutella frosting - the ultimate birthday treat! Cake adapted from the Australian Woman's Weekly . Frosting adapted from Sweetapolita
Author: Claudia Brick
Ingredients
Flourless Chocolate Hazelnut Layer Cake
  • 2/3 cup dutch cocoa (70g)
  • 2/3 cup hot espresso coffee (or instant dissolved in hot water)
  • 300 g good quality dark chocolate
  • 300 g unsalted butter
  • 2 cups (370g) firmly packed brown sugar
  • 1 cup almond meal (125g)
  • 1 cup hazelnut meal (or toasted hazelnuts, skinned and ground to an almond meal consistency)
  • 8 eggs, separated
Chocolate Hazelnut Frosting
  • 225 g unsalted butter, just softened but cool
  • 1 1/2 cups icing sugar, sifted (190g)
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 125 g dark chocolate, melted and cooled
  • 2/3 cup (200g) nutella
  • 1 tablespoon cream
  • pinch of salt
  • berries and cherries and chopped hazelnuts to decorate
Instructions
Flourless Chocolate Hazelnut Layer Cake
  1. Grease and line 3 x 20cm round cake tins. Preheat the oven to 160°C.
  2. In a heatproof bowl over a small saucepan of simmering water, melt the chocolate and butter, watching carefully and stirring to ensure it doesn’t burn.
  3. In a large bowl, whisk together the cocoa and hot coffee until smooth.
  4. Stir the chocolate mixture into the cocoa. Add the brown sugar, ground almonds, ground hazelnuts and egg yolks. Whisk to fully combine.
  5. In a clean bowl, beat the egg whites with an electric mixture until soft peaks form. Adding a third of the egg whites at a time, gently fold into the chocolate mixture.
  6. Divide mixture between the three pans.
  7. Bake until a skewer comes out just clean with a few crumbs, about 45 minutes. Turn onto a wire rack to cool.
Chocolate Hazelnut Frosting
  1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine the icing sugar and butter. Beat on low speed for about a minute. Add vanilla and beat until well combined.
  2. Add the cool chocolate and beat on medium until smooth, about 2-3 minutes.
  3. Add the nutella, cream and a pinch of salt and beat on med-high speed for another minute.
To assemble
  1. Place one layer of the cake on your serving plate. Top with a third of the frosting and spread to the edges with an offset spatula (see pictures for thickness).
  2. Repeat with the remaining layers.
  3. Decorate with chopped hazelnuts, strawberries and cherries.