Hairy Bikers Chocolate Hazelnut Cake

There is no flour in Hairy Bikers chocolate hazelnut cake, which makes it gluten free without trying to be. That recipe is in Big Book of Baking, where it serves ten at about 630 calories over 2 hours 18 minutes.

It was built as “a birthday cake for Italy”, made by Si and Dave in 2011 for the 150th anniversary of unification. Gianduia is a Piedmont speciality, ground hazelnuts blended with chocolate, and these days most people meet it as Nutella.

Six egg whites are doing the work of the missing flour, so whisk them until you can turn the bowl upside down. Stop there though, because the recipe is specific about not over whisking, and these whites are the only thing lifting a very heavy chocolate mixture.

Hairy Bikers Chocolate Hazelnut Cake Recipe

Author: Alex Saidani Cooking Method:Baking Cuisine:British Italian Courses:Snack

Difficulty:BeginnerPrep time: 20 minutesCook time: 48 minutesRest time:1 hour 10 minutesTotal time:2 hours 18 minutesServings:10 servingsCalories:630 kcal Best Season:Summer

Description

Whole hazelnuts get roasted then ground, with a handful held back for the top. Butter and chocolate melt together off the heat while the yolks are whisked with sugar for a full five minutes. Three tablespoons of Frangelico loosen it before the whites are folded in. Nutella goes on once it is cold.

Ingredients

For the Cake:

• 250g whole blanched hazelnuts
• 200g butter, cubed, plus extra for greasing
• 200g dark chocolate, broken into squares
• 6 medium eggs, separated
• 200g caster sugar, preferably golden
• 3 tbsp Frangelico hazelnut liqueur, or Amaretto, or fresh orange juice

For the Topping:

• 150g Nutella chocolate and hazelnut spread

Instructions

1. Roast the hazelnuts: Heat the oven to 200°C/Fan 180°C/Gas 6. Spread the hazelnuts on a baking tray and roast for 10 minutes, shaking the pan every 5, until golden brown. Watch them so they do not burn, then leave them to cool for a few minutes and drop the oven to 180°C/Fan 160°C/Gas 4.
2. Grind most of them: Butter a 23cm spring-clip tin and line the base with baking parchment. Blend 200g of the hazelnuts in a food processor until fairly finely ground, roughly the texture of fine breadcrumbs but with a few coarser pieces left for texture. Set the other 50g aside.
3. Melt the chocolate: Put the butter and chocolate in a heatproof bowl over gently simmering water. Stir occasionally, and as soon as nearly all the chocolate has melted, lift the bowl off and let the rest melt in the residual heat. Stir in the ground hazelnuts and leave it to cool for 5 minutes.
4. Whisk the yolks: Beat the egg yolks and sugar with an electric hand-whisk for at least 5 minutes, until pale and creamy, then stir them into the chocolate mixture until thoroughly combined.
5. Whisk the whites: Wash and dry the beaters well. In a clean bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form, which is when you can turn the bowl upside down without them sliding out. Do not over whisk.
6. Fold it together: Working quickly, stir the Frangelico into the chocolate mixture to soften it. Add a couple of tablespoons of the whites and stir until combined, then gently fold in the rest.
7. Bake it: Spoon the mixture into the tin and bake in the centre of the oven for 35 to 40 minutes, until well risen and firm.
8. Cool and top: Leave the cake in the tin for 30 minutes, then release the clip, invert it onto a serving plate, peel off the paper and let it cool completely. Spread with the Nutella and scatter over the reserved hazelnuts, whole or chopped.

FAQs

Is it really gluten free?

The cake itself is. There is no flour, no baking powder and no bicarbonate of soda anywhere in it, which is unusual enough to be worth saying out loud.

Two things need checking before you serve it to anyone who has to avoid gluten. Read the Nutella jar, since formulations differ by country. And check whichever liqueur you use, or take the third option the recipe offers and use fresh orange juice, which removes the question entirely.

How stiff should the egg whites be?

The recipe gives you a test rather than a description. Whisk until you can turn the bowl upside down without the whites sliding out, and stop there.

The recipe says do not over whisk and leaves it there, which is worth respecting. The pavlova asks for stiff but not dry, the same instruction phrased the other way round, so if you have made that you already know the point to stop at.

How finely should the hazelnuts be ground?

Fine breadcrumbs is the target, with a few coarser pieces left in on purpose.

The coffee and walnut cake grinds its nuts the same way, blitzing 65g of walnut halves to fairly fine crumbs while leaving some bigger pieces for texture. Pulse rather than running the processor continuously in both cases, and stop while you can still see the coarser bits. The 50g you set aside can go on top whole or chopped, and the recipe leaves that to you.

Frangelico, Amaretto or orange juice, which is best?

Frangelico is the obvious one, since it is a hazelnut liqueur and it doubles down on what the cake already is. Amaretto pushes it towards almond, which is pleasant but slightly different.

Orange juice is not a poor relation. Orange and chocolate work, and 3 tablespoons is a small enough amount that it is mostly there to loosen the mixture before the whites go in. That loosening matters more than the flavour, since a stiff chocolate base tears the air out of the whites as you fold.

How does this compare with the other Hairy Bikers chocolate cake?

They could not be more different. The chocolate cake in Everyday Winners has 200g of plain flour, baking powder and bicarbonate, and it is a creamed butter sponge baked in two tins and sandwiched with buttercream.

This one is denser, richer and closer to a torte than a sponge, with no icing beyond a spread of Nutella. Two very different cakes from two different books, and worth knowing which you are actually after before you start.