Comments on: hazelnut brown butter cake

By: Sarah

Sarah — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 20:57:16 +0000

I made this last weekend for my boyfriend, Alex. It was a hit. What a great recipe. Thanks for bringing attention to it!

By: Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:44:58 +0000

Does a piece taste better the second day? I’ll never find out because not a crumb was left!

While I like to think I’m pretty familiar with how to whip and fold egg whites, I did find Shuna’s instructions, which are exactly specific to this cake, to be extremely helpful.

I got invited to my first sedar on the basis of this dessert. I just have to try some of the tips above to make it kosher.

By: Anne

Anne — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:45:26 +0000

Had this last night – absolutely divine!

By: Starr

Starr — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 18:13:02 +0000

I hope this cake tastes as good as it smells… I used a tip a I found @ chow.com to remove the skins and had the entire cup done in less than 10 minutes… Boil 3 cups of water, add 4 tablespoons of baking soda, add the nuts and let boil for 4-5 minutes. The water will turn wicked black and it does rise a TON so use a deep pot and keep your eye on it. Rinse nuts in cold water and viola – easy to peel nuts! The skins just slide off. I added a step called knock-the-nuts-about rather than peeling each one… if you knock them into one another the skins just fell off in the colander.

Ooooh timer going – going to get this baby out of the oven!

By: jen

jen — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 13:34:08 +0000

I also tried this cake with pecans instead of hazlenuts and had a tremendous failure. The batter was delicious and rose beautifully in the oven, then in a flash collapsed into a sodden greasy inch thick mass. It browned and crisped on the outside and a toothpick came out clean so I called it done… but Oh, so sad… it was still undercook. Such a sad story and such a heavy, greasy, uncooked mess. My own fault, I know…

By: AKGrenier

AKGrenier — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 19:54:15 +0000

I just made this for my wife (www.leenaeats.com) for her birthday! I’ll be guest-posting about it on her blog, so I’ll share that once it’s up. It turned out great-thanks for sharing.

By: Annelise

Annelise — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 23:12:57 +0000

I made these into cupcakes and they were done in about 25 minutes. I also went very easy on the chocolate topping because it was intense. They were fantastic.

By: deb

deb — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:21:12 +0000

Hayley — The chocolate doesn’t really get crunchy, cold or warm, because it has cream in it. Straight melted chocolate would, however.

By: Hayley

Hayley — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:10:26 +0000

If topping with ganache, does it taste better served warm with melted ganache, or is it better straight from the refrigerator with crunchy chocolate topping?

By: Jenny

Jenny — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 22:22:52 +0000

I found that this recipe worked better for me as cupcakes than a layer cake. After pouring an 8-inch round I had some batter left over so I made a few cupcakes, and they rose much better than the cake, which baked up nicely but sank and was too dense for my liking. I think the batter creeping up the sides of the cupcake papers and adhering helped the cupcakes stay tall, and fluffy on the inside.

Also:

- I found this cake pretty buttery… like when I picked up a piece it left buttery smears on my fingers, so I reduced the butter by 2T
- I’m constantly finding cake too sweet (maybe my like of sweet and salty flavors?) so I added a few more pinches of salt and reduced the sugar by 1T
- I added 1t of fresh-ground Indonesian cinnamon for a kick (hooray for local spice companies!)

Then I topped them with some pastry cream that I whipped up to a nice fluff and a candied hazelnut.

It’s pretty tasty, but probably not one of my go-to recipes since it’s so finicky. I like to be able to relax when I bake, not agonize over why my egg whites aren’t stiffening properly (I had to throw out a batch and start over once).