[Inez] Hazelnut cake: Take 1

Remember that thing where I'm making a wedding cake in TWO MONTHS? Still in the recipe testing phase. I am trying to figure out how to modify a well-loved recipe to make it into a hazelnut cake that has a strong hazelnut flavor (without being overpowering) and it also light and fluffy with a good crumb that doesn't try to fall apart when I tort it for the wedding.

How much do I need? Not really sure...

This was Take One. I made a chocolate-hazelnut cake once before, which turned out well...

Toasted hazelnuts

I toasted and then ground hazelnuts and threw those in with the dry ingredients instead of the cocoa. Note: 1 1/2 cups of whole hazelnuts makes more than I need for a double layer 9-inch cake.

I used about a cup or a cup and a half (can't remember right now) in the cake, had an extra 1/3-1/2 ground and an extra 1/3 whole.

I didn't take any assembly pictures, but I have a couple of notes:

1. Doing a crumb coat the real way, wherein you apply a crumb coat and then put the thing in the fridge for 15 minutes is excellent and I highly recommend it.
2. Do NOT overwhip the whipping cream to fold into cream cheese frosting. It will make the frosting too stiff and difficult to work with. It turned out well, but took a lot of cursing to get there.

I got these pretty silver decorative things in Brazil last spring, and they seemed appropriate for this cake:

No recipe on this post. I'm going to play with it some more this weekend and I will post a recipe when I have figured it out!


Update: I made a few tweaks this past weekend, but I'm still not quite there. Getting closer, though!