I was in the mood for some chocolate (okay, like when am I ever not?), and a chocolate hazelnut praline mousse cake has been sitting right at the top of my to-do list since...forever. I didn't have a specific recipe in mind, all I knew about my proposed cake was that it should have my beloved hazelnut feuilletine layer, a chocolate sponge, and a chocolate mousse.
Chocolate hazelnut feuilletine rounds; Miniature cakes
As seen here and here, I used the recipe for the feuilletine from Tartelette's recipe. A no fail recipe for sure that I'm going to use over and over and over and over again. Okay. You get the gist on how much I love chocolate hazelnut crispy bits. ;)
Hazelnut praline
Hazelnut brittle; Cake rings; Plated cakes; Hazelnut praline powder
I really like hazelnuts. Toasted and tossed in dark luscious caramel. The smell permeating the air was almost intoxicating. Processed in the food processor, they become a really fine ground powder that can be used in so many different ways. I made more than required, mainly because I was only using them for decorative purposes. I froze the remaining leftovers I had, which lately, I've been scattering bits of it over my homemade salted butter caramel ice cream. Yums.
Oh, and the tempting cry of the caramel seductress can be too evil at times. I burnt myself while preparing the caramelised hazelnuts for my decoration atop the cake. Like I said previously, the more time I spend in the kitchen, the more injuries I seem to pick up. Burns, cuts, bruises. You name them, I've got the marks to show. :(
Back to the layers, for the sponge cake, I used some leftover chocolate sponge I had in the freezer, and for the mousse, I used Evan's recipe for nutella mousse. I folded in some Valrhona crunchy chocolate pearls in the mousse to give it some textural crunch.
To summarize layer by layer, I LOVED the bottom chocolate hazelnut feuilletine layer, the chocolate sponge was negligible as it provided a supporting role in the cake, the nutella mousse was a little too gel-like for my liking. I suspect it was my conversion of gelatin sheets to powder that perhaps caused the mousse to be firmer than I would have liked. In future, I would probably use a lesser amount of powdered gelatin so the mousse will be softer and smoother.
I reduced the recipe portions so I only made like six of these miniature cakes. My cake rings were too short in height, and I didn't have any rhodoid film on hand. So I placed the sponge in the bottom, poured the nutella mousse over and set it in the fridge to chill. After the mousse has set, I removed the mousse cakes from the rings and place them on top of precut feuilletine rounds. Improvise when needed.
Speaking of cakes, I really need to cut down on baking so much. It's not good to eat so much sweet stuff, so I'm trying hard to reduce recipes so that they'll make only a few (5-8) portions. Good luck to me cutting back on desserts! ;)
