Almond Praline Cake

An almond cake with praline based cream is a tantalising butter cream based cake with almonds and rich hazelnut paste flavoured cream. Made with Italian butter frosting instead of the usual butter + sugar concoction, this is one cake which will not leave an oily residue in your mouth but rather a light refreshing nutty taste. Assembling it is also easy as all the preparations and mise enplace can be prepared way ahead of time. I personally would prepare this cake 1 day earlier and let it chill in the refrigerator overnight as it always seem to bring out even more taste from this cake. Another variation I like to prepare with this cake for buffet lines are substituting the hazelnut cream with coffee flavoured ones. 

Below is a video showing you how to bake Almond Praline Cake

Recipe

For Butter Cream Frosting
250 gm Sugar
60 ml Water
4 nos Egg White
500 gm Unsalted Butter (room temperature and chopped)

For Almond Cake
100 gm Almond Flakes
100 gm Sugar
150 gm Hazelnut Spread (Nutella / Ferrero)

300 ml Sugar Syrup (Mix 200ml Water with 100gm Sugar)
3 pcs Vanilla Sponge

Click here for Vanilla Sponge Cake Recipe

Method

Part 1 (Making The Frosting)
1) Place sugar in a heavy pot and pour water covering it evenly.
2) Bring it to a boil (do not stir) until soft ball stage which is about 240F / 116C. Refer to video on how to check consistency without a thermometer.
3) Remove from heat and immediatelt start to whisk egg whites together till fluffy.

4) By the time the egg whites are fluffy the sugar syrup should have cooled a little. Pour sugar syrup while still whisking the egg white. The correct technique would be to let the sugar syrup flow down the sides of the mixing bowl thus cooling it further.

5) Continue to whisk even after pouring in the sugar syrup to cool down meringue.

6) Once meringue has cooled to a warm temperature, add in butter and mix till smooth. If meringue is too hot, the butter will melt and become

Part 2 (Assembling The Cake)
1) Saute almond flakes and sugar together in a pot over medium heat tossing it continuously for sugar to caramelise and coat almonds evenly.

2) When almonds are cooled,pound it a little to loosen the almond pieces.
3) Mix the hazelnut spread with 500gm of butter cream.
4) Place the first piece of vanilla sponge on a cake board, brush with sugar syrup and coat it with the butter cream. Place the second piece on top and coat it evenly doing the same for the third piece of vanilla sponge as well.

5) Coat the whole cake with generous amount of butter cream and sprinkle caramelised almond on top and on the sides. Decorate as per your desire and serve.

Recipe makes 1 X 20cm (8") Round Cake Ring.