Hello friends.
A few weeks ago my lovely friend Liz posted a link to me of a lady who had created an awesome giant Ferrero Rocher cake (this is her blog filled with fantastic bakes - http://www.sugarhero.com/), and then the challenge was born. Liz and her husband Matt had their first child 6 months ago and today marked his Dedication day, so I thought this was the perfect opportunity to attempt the bake (and it had the up side of having lots of people there to eat the cake!).
This was really fun to make, but I did it slowly over a week or so and whilst it looks like a Rocher inside it doesn't have a giant hazelnut and creamy filling, but instead layers of chocolate cake and hazelnut mousse. The biggest tip I have for you, if you want to try this special bake, is make sure you have some form of cake release in your chocolate sphere moulds. The trickiest part of this creation I found was tempting the delicate shells away from the plastic mould I used - if I were doing it again I would buy a proper flexible sphere chocolate mould as I imagine this would make life easier!
This photo shows the size of the cake, and it weighed a fair amount as well!
So here we go, I have split this recipe into 4 sections for the different elements of the bake.
Ingredients:
Chocolate shell:
250g dark chocolate
Two half spherical moulds
Cake release
Chocolate cake:
3 large eggs
175g self raising flour
175g caster sugar
175g soft butter
1 1/2 tspn baking powder
40g cocoa powder
Hazelnut mousse:
250g milk chocolate
300g whipping cream
300g Nutella
2 1/2 tspn gelatin powder
3 tbsp water
Chocolate hazelnut coating:
300g milk chocolate
50g chopped hazelnuts
Method:
Firstly you need to make your chocolate shell as this needs enough time to set solid before filling with cake and mousse. To do this, take your moulds and coat it with cake release or a small amount of oil. Melt the chocolate over a bain marie, and leave to cool for a few minutes. Pour into the bottom of the moulds and swirl around so that they are coated. Turn the moulds upside down and allow any excess to drip off. Allow to cool and then place in the fridge to harden up fully. I left these for about 3 hours and then put them in the freezer for half an hour before teasing the shells out of their moulds. If you are having problems getting them out, pop them back into the freezer for a little longer. Store in a cool place until you are ready to use.
The day before you want to serve the cake make the chocolate cake. Preheat the oven to 180C/ 170C fan assisted and grease five small cake tins. Combine all of the ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Pour into the prepared tins and then bake for 20 minutes, checking after 15 to see if a skewer inserted comes out clean. Leave to cool completely and then put in an airtight container until ready to use.
When you are ready to assemble the cake you can make the mousse. This cannot be made ahead of time, as it will start to set as soon as you have made it.
Mix together the chocolate, nutella a 2/3 of the cream and heat in the microwave in 30 second blasts, until it is all melted.
Mix the gelatin with the water, and then heat in the microwave for 30 seconds, then add to the chocolatey combination.
Whip the remaining 1/3 of the cream and then gently fold it into the chocolate. Leave to cool to room temperature. This is then ready to be used in assembling the cake.
Take the two half sphere moulds and add a couple of ladles of mousse to each. Trim two of the chocolate cakes so that they fit in the bottom of the moulds, and then cover with more mousse. Put another layer of cake on each half and pour over more mousse, so that the moulds are almost full. Place the final cake onto one of the halves, and then put both in the fridge to set for about 10 minutes.
Now is the hard part. You need to fit the two halves together by flipping one over and placing it snug on the second. Melt a little extra chocolate and paint it around the seal of the two halves - don't worry if it looks a little messy as we are going to paint the whole thing with a chocolate hazelnut coating.
Melt half of the coating chocolate over a bain marie and mix in half of the chopped hazelnuts. Allow to cool to room temperature (if you don't you will melt your shell), and then pour over the assembled sphere. You only need to cover the top half, so pour from the top let it run down the sides, using a spatula to cover all of the top half. Put in the fridge to cool and then repeat with the second half of the sphere. If you run short of chocolate coating, just whip up some more and cover any breaks in the coating.
Put in the fridge until it is ready to serve, and then enjoy this rich chocolately show stopper which will feed the whole party.
A few weeks ago my lovely friend Liz posted a link to me of a lady who had created an awesome giant Ferrero Rocher cake (this is her blog filled with fantastic bakes - http://www.sugarhero.com/), and then the challenge was born. Liz and her husband Matt had their first child 6 months ago and today marked his Dedication day, so I thought this was the perfect opportunity to attempt the bake (and it had the up side of having lots of people there to eat the cake!).
This was really fun to make, but I did it slowly over a week or so and whilst it looks like a Rocher inside it doesn't have a giant hazelnut and creamy filling, but instead layers of chocolate cake and hazelnut mousse. The biggest tip I have for you, if you want to try this special bake, is make sure you have some form of cake release in your chocolate sphere moulds. The trickiest part of this creation I found was tempting the delicate shells away from the plastic mould I used - if I were doing it again I would buy a proper flexible sphere chocolate mould as I imagine this would make life easier!
This photo shows the size of the cake, and it weighed a fair amount as well!
So here we go, I have split this recipe into 4 sections for the different elements of the bake.
Ingredients:
Chocolate shell:
250g dark chocolate
Two half spherical moulds
Cake release
Chocolate cake:
3 large eggs
175g self raising flour
175g caster sugar
175g soft butter
1 1/2 tspn baking powder
40g cocoa powder
Hazelnut mousse:
250g milk chocolate
300g whipping cream
300g Nutella
2 1/2 tspn gelatin powder
3 tbsp water
Chocolate hazelnut coating:
300g milk chocolate
50g chopped hazelnuts
Method:
Firstly you need to make your chocolate shell as this needs enough time to set solid before filling with cake and mousse. To do this, take your moulds and coat it with cake release or a small amount of oil. Melt the chocolate over a bain marie, and leave to cool for a few minutes. Pour into the bottom of the moulds and swirl around so that they are coated. Turn the moulds upside down and allow any excess to drip off. Allow to cool and then place in the fridge to harden up fully. I left these for about 3 hours and then put them in the freezer for half an hour before teasing the shells out of their moulds. If you are having problems getting them out, pop them back into the freezer for a little longer. Store in a cool place until you are ready to use.
The day before you want to serve the cake make the chocolate cake. Preheat the oven to 180C/ 170C fan assisted and grease five small cake tins. Combine all of the ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Pour into the prepared tins and then bake for 20 minutes, checking after 15 to see if a skewer inserted comes out clean. Leave to cool completely and then put in an airtight container until ready to use.
When you are ready to assemble the cake you can make the mousse. This cannot be made ahead of time, as it will start to set as soon as you have made it.
Mix together the chocolate, nutella a 2/3 of the cream and heat in the microwave in 30 second blasts, until it is all melted.
Mix the gelatin with the water, and then heat in the microwave for 30 seconds, then add to the chocolatey combination.
Whip the remaining 1/3 of the cream and then gently fold it into the chocolate. Leave to cool to room temperature. This is then ready to be used in assembling the cake.
Take the two half sphere moulds and add a couple of ladles of mousse to each. Trim two of the chocolate cakes so that they fit in the bottom of the moulds, and then cover with more mousse. Put another layer of cake on each half and pour over more mousse, so that the moulds are almost full. Place the final cake onto one of the halves, and then put both in the fridge to set for about 10 minutes.
Melt half of the coating chocolate over a bain marie and mix in half of the chopped hazelnuts. Allow to cool to room temperature (if you don't you will melt your shell), and then pour over the assembled sphere. You only need to cover the top half, so pour from the top let it run down the sides, using a spatula to cover all of the top half. Put in the fridge to cool and then repeat with the second half of the sphere. If you run short of chocolate coating, just whip up some more and cover any breaks in the coating.
Put in the fridge until it is ready to serve, and then enjoy this rich chocolately show stopper which will feed the whole party.
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