Death by Chocolate

I spent the weekend watching Lord of the Rings. After I had watched the second Hobbit-movie “The Desolation of Smaug”, I really wanted to know the whole story of LOTR. I became a big fan of Legolas, although I do not like Orlando Bloom. Aragorn is pretty cool. But if I had to be one character, it would be Gimli due to height and character.
 

The story of “middle earth” is pretty complex, like the cake that we made this weekend. Recipe is inspired by by French pastry chef Pierre Hermé. We call the cake “death by chocolate” – a must for you if you’re a chocoholic, in a depressive or sad mood or just feel hoggish. :D
 

I prepared some of the “layers” one day ahead to save time, which I recommend.

Recipe is for a 13 cm cake tin
 

Prepare one day ahead
 

brittle

• 30 grams butter at room temperature
• 25 grams sugar
• 15 grams flour
• ¼ egg white

Beat butter and sugar until creamy. Sieve the flour into the mixture and add a pinch of salt. Stir well until smooth. Finally add the egg white and mix well. Spread it on parchment paper as thin as possible and bake in the oven at 200°C for about 5 minutes. Cool completely, then break it to crumbs.

chocolate disk

• 20 grams couverture with 40% cocoa solids + 5 grams couverture with 60% cocoa solids

Melt the couverture over a bain-marie. Line your cake tin with cling film and pour in the melted chocolate evenly. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or until you need it. 

chocolate cream

• 140 ml cream
• 80 grams couverture with 40% cocoa solids + 15 grams couverture with 60% cocoa solids

Heat the cream until it starts to steam (do not bring to boil!) and pour gradually into the couverture. Mix well until the couverture melts completely. Cool at room temperature and refrigerate overnight.

On the next day

Recommendation: Roast 135 grams of hazelnuts in a pan and rub off the skin with a towel. That’s the whole amount of hazelnuts that you will need for the following steps. So you save time.

 
2 hazelnut bases

• 75 grams icing sugar, sieved
• 70 grams ground hazelnuts
• 75 grams egg white
• 15 grams whole hazelnuts

Roast 40 grams of hazelnuts in a pan and rub off the skin with a towel. Blend them in a food processor with a pinch of salt until finely ground (pulse 2 to 3 times, that’s enough I think).
Preheat the oven to 170° degrees. On parchment paper, draw two circles with the same diameter like your cake tin has.
Mix icing sugar and ground hazelnuts. Beat the egg white up (not too stiff!) and fold it gradually into the sugar-hazelnuts-mixture. Fill a piping bag with the batter and pipe a spiral of batter onto your drawn circle, following the circle and pipe spiraling inward to fill the circle.
Ground the 15g of hazelnuts and sprinkle them over the batter. Bake in the oven with the oven door slightly opened for about 25 minutes. Let them cool completely!
 

ganache

• 25 grams cream
• 20 grams couverture 40% + 10 grams couverture 60%

Heat the cream and gradually mix into the couverture, until smooth. Cool to room temperature.

nougat filling

• 8 grams butter
• 20 grams couverture 40%
• 30 grams hazelnut nougat (for example, Nutella)
• 40 grams hazelnut paste*
• 40 grams brittle (keep the rest for decoration!)
• 10 grams roasted hazelnuts, grounded

*hazelnut paste:
Roast 40grams of hazelnuts in a pan and rub off the skin. Put them in the food processor and ground it with 1 tsp vanilla sugar until you get a fine paste.
 

Melt butter, couverture and hazelnut nougat over a bain-marie. Add the hazelnut paste, the brittle and the roasted hazelnuts and let it cool to room temperature.
 

cake’s composition
Use your cake tin (or alternatively a cake ring) and line it with parchment paper. Assemble the single layers of the cake in this order:

1. put one hazelnut-layer in the form
2. on the hazelnut-layer, spread the nougat filling evenly
3. take your chocolate disk and brush it with the chocolate ganache on both sides, then put the disk into the tin
4. beat the chocolate cream and pour half of it over the chocolate disk, spread it evenly
5. put the second hazelnut-layer over it (with the top looking down)
6. spread the second half fo the chocolate cream over it evenly

Refrigerate the assembled cake for 5 hours, before glazing and decorating it sideways with the rest of the brittle.

For my glaze, I just melted couverture (60 % cocoa solids) and butter over a bain-marie, let it cool and then spread it over the cake. You can also use a bought cake glaze, like one from Dr. Oetker. 

You’ll find the recipe on the blog of cook-poet Eva. My version is a bit different.