18 | 52 Strawberry Hazelnut Layer Cake

More strawberries?

Yes, please!

That's exactly why I changed this week's featured recipe to strawberries.

From blackberries. Even though blackberries are pretty awesome, too.

Strawberry Hazelnut Layer Cake

Adapted from Artful Desperado

For the cake:

100 g (3/4 cup) roasted hazelnuts, finely ground after roasting (skins removed)

270 g (2 1/4 cups) flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

210 g (15 tablespoons) soft butter

4 large eggs

40 g (1/3 cup) sugar

80 ml (1/3 cup) maple syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

zest of 1 lemon

For the mascarpone cream:

225g (1 cup) mascarpone cheese, soft

240 ml (1 cup) heavy cream

1 tablespoon powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

And of course:

about 500g (1 pound) fresh strawberries (or other berries of your choice)

• Preheat the oven to 175ºC (350ºF).
• For the cake, beat together butter, sugar, and eggs (don't worry if it looks a bit separated). Add remaining cake ingredients and mix until just combined.
• Pour batter into one (or two) small, greased springform pans (20cm / 8in diameter) and bake for about 25-35 minutes. (If you devided the batter into two pans, it will be baked through quicker than if you just use one. But I think you knew that.) Let cool.
• For the mascarpone cream, mix all ingredients together until thick with nice peaks. 
• Before layering the cake, make sure that you even out any curved cake tops (by cutting the curve off). If you used only one springform pan, cut the cake in the middle horizontally to get two cakes for layering.
• Now, layer as following: cake, mascarpone cream, berries, mascarpone cream, cake, mascarpone cream, berries.

My modifications:

Strawberries instead of blackberries. Regular flour instead of spelt flour. Regular sugar instead of superfine sugar (in the cake).

I also didn't mash some of the berries to put inbetween mascarpone and whole berries.

The taste:

Well. How should I say this.

The cake didn't go well together with the mascarpone cream and the berries. I know, hard to imagine but true.

Also, the cake was waaaaaay too dense. And I neither overmixed it nor overbaked it.

So, all in all it was edible (of course) but I would not make it again. Shame, isn't it?

Have you ever baked something that didn't really work combination-wise?

39*52 Banana Chocolate Layer Cake

It was the hubby's birthday this week! Yay!

His usual birthday baking wish is Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte (Black Forest Cherry Cake) but this time he said that he had a yummy Banana Layer Cake once and that that would be an option as well.

So for the sake of variety, I started searching for a Banana Layer Cake recipe and decided to make this one:

Banana Chocolate Layer Cake 

Adapted from Chefkoch.de

100 g dark chocolate

600 g heavy cream

5 eggs

150 g sugar

5 tablespoon water, hot

100 g flour

50 g cocoa powder

5 bananas

200 g heavy sour cream

500 g vanilla yoghurt

3 sheets gelatine

• Melt chocolate in a bain-marie. Let cool a bit and add 200 g of the heavy cream. Stir well but carefully and not too much. Let cool in fridge.
• Separate the eggs. Beat egg whites with 50 g sugar until stiff. Beat egg yolks with remaining 100 g sugar and the hot water until foamy (about 5 minutes). Sieve flour and cocoa powder into egg yolk mix, combine carefully. Add beaten egg whites and fold in carefully. Pour into prepared springform pan and bake for 15-20 minutes at 200°C (390°F). Take out and let cool completely before cutting once horizontally.
• Combine heavy sour cream and yoghurt. Whip 200 g of the heavy cream and combine with yoghurt mix. Soak gelatine in cold water. Squeeze out excess water and warm over low heat until liquid. Add cream-yoghurt mix carefully and stir well.
• Whip the chocolate cream. Whip the last 200 g of heavy cream and combine with chocolate cream. Put in fridge again.
• Put one half of the cake into a cake ring. Peel bananas, cut in half lengthwise and arrange on cake bottom. Pour cream-yoghurt mix on top of bananas. Put second cake on top and press slightly. Distribute 2/3 of chocolate cream on top. Let cool.
• When taking away the cake ring, use remaining 1/3 of chocolate cream to cover the sides.

My modifications:

None. 

The taste:

Definitely better after 2 days than on the same day as preparing it. It just wasn't sweet enough and therefore a bit bland first. But it definitely aged well.

We might still go back to Black Forest Cherry Cake next year...

What is your typical birthday cake?

42/52 Maltesers Ovomaltine Layer Cake

Do you like malt? I do.
Maltesers, Ovomaltine, malt beer - you name it.

I never thought about a malt cake until I saw a recipe on Pinterest of a cake decorated with halved Maltesers. Come on - not only does it look amazing, it also sounds very good.

So for our birthday celebration dinner with my hubby's aunt, uncle, and cousin, I just had to try it.
I did mix two different recipes though because I did not like the frosting of the original recipe too much. But see below for yourselves.

And believe me, it really is called Ovomaltine in Switzerland.

Maltesers Ovomaltine Layer Cake

Adapted from Poires au Chocolat

Note: This will be enough for a 5-6in baking pan only. Double the ingredients for a regular sized pan and adjust the baking time to about 30-35 minutes.

65 g flour

65 g butter, room temperature

65 g sugar

35 g Ovomaltine

1/3 teaspoon baking powder

1 egg

1.5 tablespoons milk

1.5 tablespoons boiling water

• Preheat the oven to 180°C (355°F).
• Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg.
• Fold in flour, Ovomaltine, and baking powder until just combined.
• Add milk and fold in. Add boiling water and mix quickly.
• Pour into prepared baking pan and bake for 20-25 minutes.

• Let cool completely and slice lengthwise (once or twice, depending on the height of the cake). Fill and decorate with Ovomaltine frosting (see recipe below).

Ovomaltine Frosting

Adapted from Bake!Bake!Bake!

Note: This will make enough for a regular sized cake or 2 5-6in cakes.

250 g powdered sugar

45 g Ovomaltine

125 g butter, soft

2 tablespoons water, boiling

75 g Maltesers

• Mix sugar, Ovomaltine and butter until combined. 
• Add boiling water while mixing to get a smooth buttercream. 
• Fill and decorate cake. 
• Cut Maltesers in halves with a sharp knife and decorate the cake shortly before serving so that they keep their crunchiness.

My modifications:

Both recipes use Horlicks instead of Ovomaltine. Since I cannot buy Horlicks here in Switzerland, I had to go with Ovomaltine. Horlicks is white and Ovomaltine is brown which not only changed the color but also the taste, I'm sure. The original frosting recipe adds cocoa to the Horlicks which I didn't feel necessary with the Ovomaltine.

The taste:

When I first tasted it I though that everybody would say that it is waaaaaay too sweet. I thought it was way too sweet. But if you embrace the sweetness it is actually very, very good. It was a total hit with our guests and they can be critical with cakes sometimes.

Just be warned of its sweetness. Or did I already mention that?!

Is there a flavor that you really like but never though about as an ingredient for cake or other baked goodies?