Kiev Cake with a Nutella twist

I'm back. Really, really back. Not gonna disappear like that again. I mean, I'm not promising anything but I have recipes to share now!

Up until this point I had a blog writer's block, if there's such a phenomenon. I certainly had it.

But look at this beauty! My mom made the cake and I made the cream. Okay, the cream had to be remade because I royally messed up for the 1st time. It landed in the trash. 

I so hate it when perfectly good ingredients are wasted. It's a waste of money and well, obviously a waste of food. Especially when you use good quality.

So, learning from my mistakes I will share how not to repeat my clumsiness.

This cake tastes phenomenal. Seriously. The base is a meringue and there are hazelnuts thrown in. Crispy and crunchy on the outside and fluffy and oh so soft on the inside. 

And about the cream. It's a bit more work than your average butter cream but oh em gee, it's so delicous! I put nutella inside just to bring a bit more hazelnutty flavor to it. So good.

There is one con to this cake, though. Very sweet. And if you don't add enough sugar to the meringue, it will not have the same crispy consistency. But it's not badly too sweet. It's just a bit sweeter than I like normally my desserts. But very addictive.

Even though I just said it's too sweet, I ate way too much of it. Hope you'll like ;)

Kiev Cake

for the meringue

10 egg whites

500 grams sugar

100 grams toasted hazelnuts - roughly chopped

Preheat your oven to 160C (320F).

Whisk the egg whites until frothy, then add in the sugar. Wisk it until shiny and forms peaks. Then fold in the hazelnuts.

Using a big plate as a drawing pattern, put the plate on a parchment paper, outline it with a pencil and cut it. You should have two paper circles as you will bake two meringue cakes.

Place the parchment paper circles on 2 separate baking sheets and place the eggy cream on each of them.

Put them in the oven for 10 minutes then reduce the temperature to 125C (255F) and bake for 1 and a half hour. Turn the oven off but let the cakes sit inside until the oven cools down completely.

for the cream

200 grams powder sugar

200 grams butter

2 egg yolks

170 ml milk

100 grams milk chocolate

3 Tbsp Nutella

150 grams toasted hazelnuts for the top

Whisk the egg yolks in a pot just a bit so it's smooth, then add the milk and sugar to it. Place it over medium heat and stir it until it's warm and the sugar is dissolved completely. Make sure to not bring it to a boil because the yolks can be lumpy.

Strain the mixture so you won't have the egg yolk lumps. Then cool the mixture down. 

The mixture should not be warm at all, this is the point I messed it up because I thought lukewarm was already cool enough. No, it should be almost cold.

Bring water to a boil in a smaller pot, place a bowl over it and melt the milk chocolate.

When the milky mix is cool, then mix the butter until it's smooth and creamy. Add in the milk in 3 parts. Then comes the melted chocolate and the Nutella. The cream should be light but resemble to a butter cream texture.

Spread half the cream on the bottom meringue. Carefully, put the other part on top and spread the remaining cream on it. Sprinkle the toasted hazelnuts on top and enjoy :)