I made this cake for our dear friends baby shower when I was mid wedding cake baking practice. I was also a good chance to practice my wedding cake decorating 🙂 It had a layer of vanilla, a layer of hazelnut cake and a bottom layer of chocolate. The hazelnut layer was the real winner, it’s one of my all time favourites so had to be part of my wedding cake ensemble. I used hazelnut butter to add rich nuttiness, but also added a little hazelnut extract to make the hazelnut flavour really shine. You can buy hazelnut butter in stores now, but you can also make your own if you can’t find some. Here is a good how to make your own nut butter.
The cherry on top of this cake is a thick layer of maple cream cheese frosting. I wish I could take credit for the frosting, but it’s a frosting I have fallen absolutely in love with and now want to use in everything I bake from ottolenghi’s apple cake. I adjusted it slightly just to make it a bit thicker and better for cake frosting, but still just as heavenly!
– Maple Hazelnut Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting –
dry
280g all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
wet
200g flavourless oil
330g dark brown sugar
3 eggs
180g buttermilk
150g hazelnut butter
1 tsp hazelnut extract
maple cream cheese frosting
200g butter, slightly softened
200g light brown sugar
170g maple syrup
330g full fat cream cheese, slightly softened
Heat the oven to 350F. Grease 3, 6 inch cake pans, or 2, 8 inch cake pans.
In a large bowl whisk all the dry ingredients till thoroughly mixed. In another bowl whisk all the wet ingredients together. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
Divide the batter evenly between the cake pans. Bake and check for doneness after 30mins until a toothpick into the middle comes out clean. Allow to cool for 5mins and then transfer to a cooling rack.
Frosting
Beat butter, sugar and maple syrup together in a mixer with a paddle attachment on medium till light and fluffy. Add cream cheese and beat till the icing is smooth.
To assemble
Slice any dooming off the top of the cake layers. Frost the top of each cake layer and stack on top of each other. Spread a thick layer of frosting all over the assembled cake. To decorate as in the photos you can pipe with regular american buttercream or swiss meringue buttercream. Cool the frosted cake in the fridge, colour your frosting your desired colours and pipe with a star tip in rows.
