Egg-less chocolate hazelnut cake with LAYERS!

 Mapcap Cupcake 's amazing blog and this particular recipe got me into food blogs, in a big way, as I have mentioned elsewhere on this blog. I had been looking for a vegan (read egg-less) cake recipe for a while. I simply converted the vegan recipe to vegetarian by using buttermilk. I tried out this particular one, and I don't think I have had such delicious cake- with or without egg. This one is a keeper. I've made the cake at least three times before, and I have to say, it still hasn't lost any of its glory.

Ingredients:

Hazelnut Cake 

1 cup buttermilk
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup hazelnut flour
2 tbsp corn starch
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/3 cup canola oil
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour two 6-inch pans, and line bottoms with parchment paper. In a separate bowl, sift dry ingredients together and combine. Add buttermilk with remaining wet ingredients and then add the dry ingredients to we ingredients. Bake for around 22 minutes. 

For the praline:

1 cup hazelnuts, skinned and toasted.
2/3 cups sugar

Line a baking sheet with parchment and lightly grease. Place sugar in a skillet and heat for around 10-20 minutes until the sugar stars to melt. After 20 minutes, if sugar has not melted, stir lightly.  Return to low heat and stir in the hazelnuts, making sure that the nuts are thoroughly coated. Pour mixture on parchment paper and let cool. Once cooled(it should be brittle) chop into small pieces, using a food processor. 

Hazelnut Buttercream:

1/2 cup butter
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
1/4 cup water
1/3 cup praline
1 cup milk powder

Using a mixer, blend sugar and butter. Add milk powder and water and combine. Add in the praline bits.

Ganache Glaze:

4oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup heavy cream
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp maple syrup

Heat the heavy cream, butter and the maple syrup(maple syrup can also be skipped) until the mixture starts to boil. Remove from heat and add in the chocolate chips. Mix thoroughly. 

To assemble the cake, carefully split the cake horizontally into 2 layers. Add the buttercream on the first layer and then place the second layer on top it. Glaze the cake the chocolate ganace, and decorate with more of the hazelnut buttercream, if desired. 

Rose hazelnut macarons with chocolate ganache

So if you've been on Foodgawker long enough, you'll know that anyone who maintains a food blog is obsessed with macarons. I don't mean to imply that I consider mine a full fledged professional food blog, but given that all my entries so far are mostly food-related, it's the closest parallel for now. So yes, after months of macaron exposure and overdose, I decided I had best try this monster out. I'd heard horror stories on how difficult they are to make; how you had to be super careful with preparation and execution. I pretty much followed Eat.Live.Travel.Write 's recipe. She does a great job of describing exactly what worked for her, and what didn't. 

To add a bit of a twist, I added some rose essence instead of the regular vanilla, and paired the cookies with some chocolate ganache. I, for one, am totally addicted to macarons- both eating them and making them. Simply thinking of all the combinations and permutations makes me just so happy! 

Ingredients:

French Macarons

115 g hazelnut flour

230 g powdered sugar

144 g egg whites (I used 5 eggs)

72 g sugar

rose essense

1/2 tsp salt

Chocolate ganache

1 cup whipping cream

3/4 cup chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Sift the dry ingredients. TWICE.

2. Dump the egg whites and the sugar into the mixer. I followed her instructions exactly. 3 minutes at level 4. 3 minutes at level 6, 3 more minutes at level 8. One minute at level 10. The meringue should be stiff.

3. Add the sifted mixture to the meringue and add in the rose essence.

4. Pipe the mixture into waxed or parchment paper.

5. Bake for 12 minutes at 350 F. I baked my second batch for longer- around 16 minutes. I liked the second batch better.

6. I had to make sure the cookies didn't stick to the pan. Baking them for longer helped. The cookies tasted great, but the shells were not perfect. Not bad for a first attempt though!

7. Heat the whipping cream to a simmer and add the chocolate chips forming a thick mixture.

8. Assemble by piping the ganache on one side of a cookie and attaching the other end to another cookie.