Torta Alla Gianduia (Chocolate Hazelnut Cake)

This is a recipe I've wanted to try since I bought "How to be a Domestic Goddess."  Essentially, it's a flourless hazelnut chocolate cake topped with a ganache and toasted hazelnuts.  Look at the picture from the book, that looks amazing!

Before I started anything, I melted a 1/2 cup of Ghiradelli 60% chocolate chips in a small pan and set it aside.

I also ground up 1/2 a cup of hazelnuts, and set that aside as well.

I've made flourless chocolate cakes before, and this usually employs the separation of 6-9 eggs.  This cake used 6 eggs, separated.

I whisked the egg whites until they were stiff.

Then came the yolks.  I beat 1 stick of butter with half a jar of Nutella.

If you've never had Nutella, go out and buy some.  There's no Peanut butter in Europe, they eat Nutella.  This spread is made from chocolate and hazelnuts.  This is good on toast, bananas, pretzels.  I've also used it for ice cream before, but that's another blog post.  Anyway, I beat them together.

Next I beat in the egg yolks, ground hazelnuts...

and Frangelico.

This is hazelnut liqueur, and I love using it in baking.  After all of this is beaten together, I folded in the melted chocolate.

Next came the egg whites.  I took a dollop of egg white and just stirred it into the heavy Nutella mixture.

This was to "lighten" it.  I was not concerned with keeping the air bubbles in the egg whites in tact, that little bit would make it much easier to fold in the rest of the egg whites.

Pour into a springform pan lined with parchment paper and bake at 350 degrees F for 40 min.

Now it was time to work on the icing.  Melt another 1/2 cup or 4 oz of chocolate (Ghiradelli 60%) with another Tbsp of Frangelico and 1/2 a cup of heavy cream in a tiny pan.

Remove from heat and whisk.  I used my electric mixer, and it wasn't really thickening, so I set it aside and focused on the toasted hazelnuts.

In a dry pan, toast up 1/2 cup or 4 oz of hazelnuts.  The recipe calls for whole hazelnuts, but I used crushed.

Toast them until you smell them and/or they turn golden brown.

Set aside and let them cool.  40 min later, the cake is ready.

This came out beautiful!  Let it cool, then remove from the pan and put it on a plate.  You won't be able to get the bottom off, even with the parchment paper.  It's just not worth it.

My icing turned out just fine!  Slightly thick because of the heavy cream being beaten.

Top with hazelnuts and you're done!

It looks really good....

But it tastes even better!