Layers of blessing.....

Without much practice on baking recently, I find my baking skills become very lousy. When I recalled by those baking pictures that I took few years back I wonder where is my passion and skills had gone. Last week was the birthday of my hubby and I took that opportunity to practice a birthday cake.

So, I choose a recipe that I made few years ago, Praline Chocolate Cake, his forever favorite cake. This is the one I made four years ago for my customer (right picture) but this time I didn't manage to make each layer of sponge and cream evenly. 

My hubby is kind enough and appreciate whatever outcome it is and still very enjoy the taste and texture of the cake. I remember he only allowed to eat those cake edges that I cut out but not a nice piece of cake. Although the cake was not well assemble this time, we enjoyed the lightness of the cake. I'm quite satisfy with the soft sponge. So far, this is the best sponge cake recipe I found from 孟老师的美味蛋糕卷. For the praline, I use to make it with hazelnut but last week when I was making this cake in a rush and just notice that I don't have hazelnut so I replace it with almond. I must say hazelnut is still the best to go with. This might not be the perfect cake but the purpose to post this up is to share about the sponge cake recipe. It's really good indeed and why not share with everyone. Hope you like it too!

孟老师的美味蛋糕卷

Recipe for plain sponge (size 36cm x 26cm):

Ingredients:

Unsalted butter 40g

Egg yolk 100g

Caster sugar 20g

Egg white 160g

Caster Sugar 75g

Plain flour 55g

1. Prepare a baking tray lined with baking paper. Melt the butter than set a side to cool.
2. Whisk the egg yolks with sugar in a double boiler until thicken and pale in color. 
3. In another bowl whisk the egg whites with caster sugar until peak foam.
4. Fold the egg yolks into the egg whites then gently fold in the shifted flour.
5. Pour some mixture (4) into a clean bowl then mix in the melted butter until well combine.  Pour back into the mixture of (4) and mix gently until everything well combine.
6. Pour the batter into prepared baking tray and spread evenly. I put the mixture into a piping bag to pipe out the mixture as I need very thin sponge. It couldn't fill up the entire baking pan so I bake them in another cake tin as an assorted cake. 
7. Bake at 190C for 10 - 12 minutes. Be careful  not to over bake it.
8. Remove the cake from the baking tray immediate when it out from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Tear out the side of the baking paper and let it completely cool down and ready to use.

Recipe for cocoa sponge (size 36cm x 26cm):

Ingredients:

Unsalted butter 25g

Egg yolks 80g

Caster sugar 25g

Cocoa powder 20g

Cold water 20g

Egg whites 120g

Caster sugar 60g

Plain flour 45g

1. Prepare a baking tray lined with baking paper. Melt the butter than set a side to cool. 
2. Whisk the egg yolks with sugar in a double boiler until thicken and pale in color. Mix in cocoa powder and cold water until well combine.
3. In another bowl whisk the egg whites with caster sugar until peak foam
4. Fold the egg yolks into the egg whites then gently fold in the shifted flour.
5. Pour some mixture (4) into a clean bowl then mix in the melted butter until well combine.  Pour back into the mixture of (4) and mix gently until everything well combine.
6. Pour into prepared baking tray and spread evenly. I put the mixture into a piping bag to pipe out the mixture as I need very thin sponge. It couldn't fill up the entire baking pan so I bake them in another cake tin as an assorted cake.
7. Pour the batter into prepared baking tray and spread evenly. Bake at 190C for 10 - 12 minutes. Be careful  not to over bake it.
8. Remove the cake from the baking tray immediate when it out from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Tear out the side of the baking paper and let it completely cool down and ready to use.

For the praline paste:

Lightly toast 80g whole hazelnuts on a baking sheet.

In a stainless steel sauce pan, combine 100g caster sugar and 100g water. Do not stir. The mixture will reduce. Allow to caramelize and you will see the sides start to color first. Once the sugar reduction has caramelized, remove from heat. Add the lightly toasted hazelnut to the caramel then stir briskly, this should be done very quickly as the sugar reduction will start to harden. The heat from the caramel will warm the nuts and allow the hazelnuts essence to permeate. The nut caramel is then poured onto a greased marble slab. Allow the caramel to cool. Once cool use a spatula to spread and press the nut caramel in an even layer. Flip the cooling layer over. Allow to harden. Use a rolling pin or some other weighty tool to break up the hardened nut caramel. The pieces should be small enough to fit in your food processor. Pulse the food processor until the pieces begin to smooth until a paste. Continue to process until desired smoothness. Store in an airtight container. This paste is great to jazz up your pastry cream or adding to your cream puffs.

To assemble to the cake:

1. Divide the plain sponge and cocoa sponge into two sheets. Now you got four sheets of sponge cake.
2. Whip 300ml cream with one tablespoon vanilla extract. 
3. Whip 250ml cream with 100g praline paste
4. Melt 150ml cream with 50g dark chocolate and set aside.
5. Place a piece of cocoa sponge on a cake board, spread half of the vanilla cream on the cocoa sponge evenly. It's better to use the piping bag to pipe out the cream, that would be much evenly.
6. Place a plain sponge on the vanilla cream then pipe out the praline cream on top. 
7. Place another cocoa sponge on the praline cream and pipe out the vanilla cream.You could reserve some cream for decoration.
8. Place another plain sponge for the last layered. Spread the chocolate cream evenly on top. 
9. Place in the fridge for at least 4 hours or overnight.
10. Cut out the edges to get a nice layer of appearance. Decorate the cake as you like. Enjoy!