Espresso and Hazelnut Chocolate Cake

Chocolate, coffee and hazelnuts are a dreamy match that tastes even better the next day.

The cake is easy to make and completely adaptable to chop and change what you have at home.

Because of its simplicity the deliciousness of the cake relies on fantastic ingredients, good artisan chocolate (70%) and coffee, organic eggs and nuts.

We will have 3 bowls here, one bowl for the melted chocolate, coffee and butter, one bowl for the egg yolks and sugar and lastly a bowl for the egg whites.

You can change the hazelnuts for almonds or pistachios and the coffee with a liqueur of choice, the chocolate can be a flavour infused one and I think choc orange could work well.

Bakes a 23cm cake

I served this with some whipped Masala cream and slices of blood orange – pure bliss. For the masala cream, whip 340ml fresh cream with 3 tablespoons icing sugar and 2 tablespoons Masala liqueur (less or more according to your taste) into soft peaks,. PS: I recommend to whip the cream until just soft peaks.

an electric hand whisker or stand mixer

23cm loose bottom cake tin

• 240g hazelnuts
• 150g unsalted butter, cubed
• 4 tablespoons espresso
• 90g 70% chocolate, broken into pieces
• 3 eggs, separated
• 110g caster sugar
• icing sugar to decorate

1. Line a 23 tin with baking paper and grease the sides with butter.
2. Let’s start with the hazelnuts, preheat the oven to 160c, roast the hazelnuts until golden, cool and place onto to a clean tea towel, fold the ends to make a parcel and rub the skins off the hazelnuts. Alternatively, you can buy shelled hazelnuts but they tend to be very expensive. Pulse in a food processor until a fine crumb, don’t over process or you might end up with hazelnut butter.
3. Melt the butter, chocolate and coffee in a bowl over just barely simmering water, slow and low is the key here. Once melted, cool and fold into the hazelnut flour.
4. Meanwhile, beat the egg yolks and sugar until pale and doubled in volume, it will look moussy in texture.  Whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form. (See kitchen note).
5. Carefully fold the egg yolk mixture into the hazelnut and chocolate mixture.
6. Then very gently fold the egg whites, in stages, into the chocolate mixture. We want to keep as much air into the chocolate mixture as possible.
7. Bake for 25 minutes until the cake feels firm to the touch and coming away from the sides. Cool in the tin and lightly dust with icing sugar.

Whisking egg whites to soft peaks: You’ll know you’ve made it to the soft peak stage when you turn over your beater and then lift it upright to see the tips of the whites curling a bit. They’ll definitely be a peak shape, but will flop over and go back into the mixture after a few seconds.