Looking for a nut cake to mark an occasion? This hazelnut cake will tick all the boxes given that nuts and chocolate are required! A lovely fall dessert!

There are times when a simple bite of a cake wouldn’t cut it. Times when our heart is open for merriment and jolly, a bit of cake certainly adds to the occasion but in such elevated mood, we may not even notice if a forkful of cake flies by.

This might be the reason we mark celebrations with bigger cakes. The opaque fact that we generally celebrate with more people where a big cake divided to small portions should not be considered valid here as it would completely ruin the point.

So, we celebrate big occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, probably anything that’s different from a weekend with big cakes because that big cakes have the ability to make a mark.

It’s like a full stop at the end of a sentence that marks the end of a chapter in book of life. Not as the rest of the thoughts and sentences hadn’t got a meaning but the last effort always carries more weight.

It’s not accidental that the last place is considered the place of honour. Given of course that we are not doing a 100-yard dash or similar race where being the dot at the end of the line would have a completely different meaning.

Luckily, cake making races are completely different from competitions in athletics. It’s one of the few competitions where no matter what place our creation achieves, we won’t go home with a sour face.

Except, of course if it’s a lemon cake contest where clouds were borrowed from the misty November so not even the Sun could put a smile on our faces.

Not like the misty November couldn’t be the source of joy and merriment. There are many of us who find wandering under the thin veil that covers the world during the autumn months strangely satisfying.

The dimming lights of the fall cajoling our face are like the wind of the setting sun during the unbearably hot summer days. The parched Earth may get some refreshing rain again that washes away the dust of summer.

Slowly the green vanishes from the world letting the playful fingers of the fall chase the leaves around us in an elated colourful cavalcade. With the leaves the seeds of life are getting ready to take the leap too.

With great exceptions they all fall into the immeasurable abyss, hoping for a patch of sunny and nutritious soil to fulfill their destiny and become trees like their parents before them and their grandparents before them for centuries.

Only they find us with quick hands eagerly picking them up for our very first hazelnut cake of the year.

One’s fall is the other man gain so is the saying goes and nothing could be closer to the truth than hazelnut cakes or in fact any nut cakes.

This cake could be made with any nuts or a mixture of nuts without much difference in texture but of course notable differences in flavour. The original recipe is based on the Gerbeaud cake that is a rectangular shaped, a bit bigger than bite sized cake with walnuts. Even as Gerbeaud cakes are quite capable of pleasing any type of crowd, it doesn’t have the ability to truly stand out, let alone to be The Dot.

Pastry:

4 cup / 500g Flour
2 Egg
17 tablespoon / 250g Butter (room temperature)
1 tablespoon Honey or other sweetener of choice
1 Lemon zest
0.3 oz / 10g Fresh yeast
⅓ cup / 100ml Milk

Filling:

7 oz / 200g Hazelnuts (ground)
14 oz / 400g Apricot jam (See how to make Natural Apricot Jam at the Low Carb Condiments)

Topping:

3.5 oz / 100g Sugar free baking chocolate
½ cup / 100ml heavy cream

Kitchen utensils:

Ø9¾” / Ø24cm Baking tray

How to make Hazelnut cake:

Put flour, eggs, butter, honey or sweetener of choice, yeast and lemon zest into a mixing bowl.
Pour the milk into it as well and knead until even.
Cover mixing bowl with the dough with a kitchen towel and leave it to rest in a warm (95°F / 35°C) place for half an hour.
After half an hour, take the dough out of the bowl onto a floured surface.
Divide it into 4 equal pieces and make balls out of them.
Turn on the oven to preheat it to 350°F / 180°C and prepare the cake tin with parchment paper or butter it out.
Set the 3 pieces of balls aside and work with the first one.
Put it on the floured surface roll it out to a circle shape, size of the baking tin.
Lay the flattened dough into the tin, adjust it if necessary.
Grind rest of the hazelnuts. Before grinding hazelnuts, select the nicest ones and save them for decorating the top. Divide the apricot jam and the ground hazelnut into three equal pieces.
Spread third of the jam on the first layer of the the dough evenly.
Sprinkle third of hazelnuts on top.
Repeat the steps two more times: roll out the second ball, put it onto the first layer, spread jam and sprinkle hazelnuts on top.
Finish this process with rolling out the last ball and place it on top.
Poke the top with a fork. It might seem like an unnecessary step but lack of it could cause the top layer to crack during baking.
Place it into the preheated oven for about 40 minutes or until the top is golden brown.
For the chocolate cover melt chocolate with the heavy cream in a small pan over steaming water.
Spread it evenly on top of the cake. If the top of the cake turns out to be cracked or uneven just flop the cake upside down.
Decorate top with whole hazelnuts.
Let it settle for a couple of hours until chocolate gets more or less solid consistency before slicing it up.