When it came to my sister’s birthday (last year), she had the exact main and cake decided upon, which made planning very easy.

The main was a beautiful slow cooked beef parpadelle, which I will have to make again and post – it is divine! And the cake was this gorgeous chocolate hazelnut mousse layer cake. The cake tasted amazing and worked beautifully with the mousse.

If you’re afraid the cake might taste too much like coffee, don’t worry it didn’t, and I cut down the coffee for the mousse, as I wanted to enjoy it too 🙂 Everyone else had to suffer with the reduced coffee flavour.

Chocolate Cake with Hazelnut Mousse

Recipes from: Erica’s Sweet Tooth

1-3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cups good cocoa powder
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee

– Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare you 8″ cake rounds by greasing and flouring them

– Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together into a bowl and mix until well combined

– In another bowl, combine the buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry

– With the mixer still on low, add the coffee and stir just to combine

– Split the batter into the prepared pans

– Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until cake tester comes out clean
– Cool in pans for 30 minutes, then turn onto a cooling rack to cool completely
– Once cooled, use a large serrated knife to evenly split each layer into 2 and level off any domes from baking
– Layer cakes and mousse, sprinkling toasted hazelnuts between each layer for a nice crunch

Chocolate Hazelnut Mousse

3 cups (750ml) whipping cream
1 cup Nutella spread
4 tbsp hot water (not boiling)
4 tsp instant espresso (I used about 1 teaspoon)
Dash of Kahlua

– Dissolve instant espresso in hot water in a medium sized bowl
– Add the Nutella and Kahlua, beating until smooth
– In a mixer, whip the whipping cream until it forms stiff peaks
– Gently fold the nutella mixture into the whipped cream until the color is uniform
– Divide mousse between layers of cake

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