This gold hazelnut praline ganache cake is a tall and layered beauty of chocolate cake and hazelnut praline ganache. It is topped with a distinct handmade chocolate sail dusted with gold luster and chocolate candy.
Gold Hazelnut Praline Ganache Cake
It has been about 3 years since I’ve re-visited my original hazelnut praline chocolate cake recipe. Usually, I only make recipes once because my list of things to try baking keeps growing but a really good friend of mine requested this particular cake for his girlfriend’s birthday so of course I wasn’t going to say no!
So I baked this gold hazelnut praline ganache cake but added some very special toppings. I handmade a chocolate sail by free-forming some tempered chocolate and brushed gold luster dust on it. I also chopped up some Malteser and Ferrero Rocher candies for asymmetry and sprinkled it randomly over the top of the cake.
How to Paint Chocolate with Luster Dust
For the painted chocolate sail, I simply brushed on luster dust! It took several coats to get this much gold on it but it wasn’t difficult by any measure and anyone can do it!
Just make sure you get the edible luster dust! There are lots of options out there, most of them are poorly labelled and inedible.
Typically, you’ll see luster dust mixed with a clear alcohol to make a paint but if you do this it won’t stick to the chocolate because of the properties of the chocolate.
A few notes:
The honeycomb interior of chopped maltesers tend to absorb moisture in the air and melt into an ugly mess. To avoid my mistake, I would leave the maltesers whole or use a different candy entirely.
I followed a YouTube tutorial to learn how to make this chocolate sail! But basically it is just tempered chocolate spread out onto parchment. To get the shape, you just bend the parchment into different angles and secure it with some clothespins the chocolate has cooled and solidified.
A birthday cake just isn’t a birthday cake without a topper! Mine was handmade by a friend who used a fancy crafts paper cutter but you can easily make one yourself or get one off Amazon/Michaels/Etsy.
More tall and layered cake recipes:
Skyscraper Strawberry Shortcake
Reese Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake
Recipe for Gold Hazelnut Praline Ganache Cake
Gold Hazelnut Praline Ganache Cake
Ingredients
Hazelnut Praline
- 100 g Hazelnuts
- 3/4 cup of granulated sugar
Chocolate Cake
- 3 cups sugar
- 2 ½ + 2 tbsps cups all purpose flour
- 1 cup + 2 tbsps cocoa
- 3 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 ½ teaspoon salt
- 3 eggs
- 1 ½ cup buttermilk
- 1 ½ cup strong black coffee OR 3 teaspoons instant coffee in 1 ½ cup boiling water
- ¾ cup vegetable oil
- 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Hazelnut Praline Ganache
- 320 mL and 800mL of heavy cream
- 10 oz. of milk chocolate
- All of the hazelnut praline
Gold Decorations
- Dark chocolate
- Maltesers
- Ferrero Rocher
- Gold Luster Dust
Instructions
Hazelnut Praline
- Preheat oven to 150 degrees C
- Roast hazelnuts for about 8-10 mins, then place the hazelnuts between 2 towels and rub the hazelnuts to get the skin off
- In a saucepan, caramelize the sugar one third at a time. Place 1/3 of sugar into pan at medium heat, stir and let melt until it reaches a caramel colour. Add in second third and last third slowly, making sure to stir slowly but constantly
- Once all the sugar is caramelized, throw in the hazelnuts and coat them all with the melted sugar
- Immediately transfer to oiled cookie sheet. Let the praline cool until hardened
- Break up praline into pieces, process in food processor until it reaches a super fine consistency
Chocolate Cake
- Preheat oven to 350°F
- Grease 9-inch round baking pans
- Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt in large bowl
- In another bowl, combine eggs, buttermilk, coffee, oil and vanilla
- Add liquids to dry ingredients and beat until mixed together
- Pour batter evenly into prepared pans
- Bake 25-30 minute until the centre of the cake is set
Hazelnut Praline Ganache
- In a microwave, melt the chocolate in 30s intervals, stir in between intervals
- Stir the processed praline into the chocolate
- Bring 320mL of heavy cream to a boil, then pour 1/3 of it into the chocolate mixture. Stir slowly until evenly combined. Drizzle in the rest of the boiled heavy cream and stir to combine
- Pour in the cold 800mL heavy cream. You will have a very liquid mixture
- Place the entire mixture into a refrigerator for a couple hours or overnight to cool. If possible, put the beaters of your standmixer/handmixer into the fridge as well. You want to make sure everything is really cold, in order to be able to whip up the cream and create a thicker consistency
- When the cream mixture (ganache) is cooled, whip the mixture on medium speed until medium peak forms. You don’t want to whip it for too long or on high speed because your whip cream will curdle and turn to butter
- Frost cake right away or refrigerate to keep from separating into a watery mess
Gold Decorations
- Brush gold luster dust over Maltesers and Ferrero Rocher
- Melt dark chocolate and spread over parchment paper, wait 1 minute for it to set a little bit, then pick up corners of the paper and clip together to form an asymmetrical sail shape
- Peel back parchment paper carefully and place sail on top of cake along with other decorations.
Did you make this recipe?
Leave a comment below and tag @chocolateandconnie on Instagram.
Hazelnut Praline adapted from: Alena Kogotkova
Chocolate Cake recipe from: Hershey’s
OH MY GOD CONNIE!!!! I’m totally dead over this cake. It’s so so so so soooo gorgeous and looks freaking incredible!
ahhh thank you !!! 🙂 means so much coming from you!