When I was kid – one of my favorite sweets was the chocolate filled with coco and I was obsessed with this sweet for very long…Yesterday I was thinking if I do a birthday cake for myself, it would be something related to these two ingredients. Actually I did once but it was different. So today I’m sharing the recipe how to do a birthday cake with my two lovely tropical ingredients: coco and choco.
Preparation for hazelnut choco sponge cake
- Egg 6 pcs but separate around 120-130 gr white yolk
- Sugar 40-50 gr ( by original recipe 100 gr, but I reduced)
- Ground hazelnut 60 gr (I used crushed one)
- Butter 35 gr (melted)
- All purpose flour 40 gr
- Cacao powder 40 gr
- White yolk 120-130 gr (from the above 6 eggs)
- Sugar for white yolks 50 gr
Beat well the egg yolk with sugar. Mix well all dry ingredients (ground hazelnut, cacao powder and flour). Beat the white yolk well, add the sugar gradually. First mix well egg yolk with 1/3 of white, then pour the mixture to the rest of white yolk.
Fold it nicely then add the dry ingredients gradually, melted butter is the last one. I baked the sacher on the rectangular tray (32 cm x 44 cm) at 200°C for around 10-12 minutes.
Before making a cake I was thinking how not to waste the cake, if we do Swiss roll, it’s OK! But if we do round shape, we cut and the rest…gone! Anyway it’s normal or we need a square-shape mold! As usual I do prefer to absorb my cake with rum sirup a bit.
Preparation for coco cream
- Coco thick sauce 300 ml ( you can use canned or fresh one)
- White chocolate 200 gr (you can reduce to lower the sweetness)
- Gelatine 7-8 gr
- Vanilla 5-6 ml
- Whipped cream 400 ml
- Vanilla 3 ml
Heating the coco sauce by bain-marie, add the white chocolate, stir well until all chocolate melted and add dehydrated gelatine and vanilla. Let’s cool down then fold it nicely with whipped cream. The montage is simple, I use the ring with film to hold to shape the cake. The first slice of cake goes first then add the coco cream, put it to the freezer for 15′ before adding another slice and cream, totally we have 3 or even 4 layers of cake, I do prefer 4 but my ring – not high enough. When done with all layers, keep the cake in the fridge until it sets.
What I do with top surface? I decided to glaze it with dark chocolate ganache to balance the sweetness of the coco cream to enhance the flavor, then top with shredded coconut with some chocolate dust.
We all did enjoy a newly-created cake with two ingredients that obsessed me for long time and I’m happy to make it, what I love the most is the combination between coco cream with dark chocolate ganache on top in perfect harmony as well as the crunchy of shredded coconut with the hazelnut in the cake. The rum flavor is also well noticed!
Le petit renard 