Chocolate Hazelnut Mozart Cake

I remember the first time I had a slice of Mozart cake, I loved everything about it! The delicious praline cream, crispy hazelnut meringue and the tart berries which beautifully offsets the richness.

I instantly thought, “well this must be hard to create!” Like hours and hours of preparation, right? Nope! This was literally the simplest most gratifying of all the cakes I’ve ever made. It’s so simple, so delicious and so worth it!

The first bite was absolute magic, the meringue is crispy and you instantly get that scrumptious aroma of the toasted hazelnuts, for the cream filling I substituted the praline for crispy chocolate vanilla wafers and melted chocolate which complimented the hazelnut meringue perfectly. I topped the cake with melted dark chocolate and fresh raspberries. The end result was totally unexpected , but in the best way!

Do give this a try, here’s how!

Chocolate Hazelnut Mozart Cake

Ingredients
Meringue discs

360ml castor sugar
200g hazelnuts, toasted and blitzed in a food processor till fine
190ml icing sugar, sifted
40ml cornflour
Egg whites from 4 large eggs, room temperature

Chocolate cream

500ml whipping cream
150g hazelnut praline paste
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
95ml icing sugar
200g dark chocolate, melted

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°c. Line 2 baking trays with baking paper and trace 4 x 20cm circles on them.

2. Combine 60g of the castor sugar with the hazelnuts, corn flour and icing sugar. Beat the egg whites until soft peaks (when whisking egg whites make sure your bowl and whisk are super clean) slowly pour in the castor sugar gradually until stiff peaks have formed.

3. Fold in the hazelnut mixture, and pipe the meringues onto 20cm discs and bake for 10-12 minutes until just about turning golden.

4. For the chocolate cream, place cream in a large mixing bowl and whisk until soft peaks form, fold in vanilla, icing sugar, melted chocolate and the hazelnut praline paste.

Assemble

Layer the meringue discs alternately with the chocolate cream and refrigerate overnight.

Decorate with melted dark chocolate and berries.