Hazelnut Brown Butter Cake

March 2008 I was reading the great blog Smitten Kitchen, and saw the recipe for a Hazelnut Brown Butter cake. My heart started racing, it looked so good. I immediately printed it out to make the cake later and there is sat in my recipe binder for over a year.

Yesterday was my Pa's birthday (happy birthday Dad!) and we had a combined Mother's Day/Birthday dinner on Sunday. Finally I had the perfect occasion to make this somewhat complicated cake.

For this cake you need blanched hazelnuts, which you then grind in a food processor with confectioners sugar and a little flour. I purposely didn't grind the nuts and sugar too finely since I wanted little chunks of nuts in the final cake.

I then made the brown butter, which is simply two stick of butter (yes TWO sticks) and the seeds of a vanilla bean. Throw the rest of the bean in there too in order to get more of that yummy vanilla flavor. Melt the butter and cook it until is turns a tan color and is a bit nutty smelling.

Then you'll need to whip 6 egg whites with a little sugar until they form stiff peaks.

Alternately add the nut/flour mixture and the brown butter to the egg whites. Be careful folding the ingredients into the egg whites so you don't flatten them. As you mix, don't worry if the batter ends up looking "broken." It's supposed to look that way.

The recipe says to bake it for an hour, but like Smitten Kitchen's cake, mine was done in 40 minutes. Cool it and flip it out onto your serving plate. I put a little strips of parchment paper under the cake to keep my plate clean when I topped it with the chocolate ganache.

Isn't is puurrty?

As the cake cooled I made the chocolate ganache for the top, which was simply some semi-sweet chocolate chips, heavy cream, and a dash of instant coffee melted together until smooth and shiny. I don't have a double boiler so I melted it in a little metal bowl over a sauce pan of simmering water.

Once the ganache was made I poured it over the cake and let it set and ta da, a very pretty birthday cake. Not to toot my own horn, but it was VERY good just the right mix of richness, nuttiness, and sweetness. I definitely won't wait so long to make it again!