Idea behind:
Think nutella, think rocher, Ferrero had the right idea getting in to the chocolate/hazelnut market. This one has a potential of being a best seller.
The Cake:
My first idea was to have a thick, fudgey, flourless base. Using ground hazelnuts as a stabilise. After researching recipes and researching Miss C's website and found this meringue base which I decided to test. When it first came out of the oven, I was a bit worried because they were very airy and tasted of egg whites. They were easy to inject with the warmed up nutella.
The cakes began to sink well below the cupcake tip even though I filled them 3/4 full. They also didn't hold their shape in the flimsy cupcake holders. The new cupcake papers should sort that out.
On further thought, I think the cake batter could work a bit better with an additional tablespoon of flour and 75 grams of the ground hazelnut. This amount of batter will make 69 mini cupcakes, although the could have been filled a little bit more.
Filling:
Nutella works excellently as the filler. A few seconds in the microwave renders it injector friendly.
Frosting:
This was a little bit of a pain in the ass! I started out wanting to make an icing that was in this season's Donna Hay magazine that was a form of Italian meringue. It was originally with coffee and of course I decided I wanted to have it with chocolate. So that was the first mistake. The egg whites ended up completely flat. I used the syrup it created - with 125 grams of the chocolate etc... and made a plain buttercream icing using the same recipe as the vanilla frosting. The roasted hazelnut pieces covering 1/3 - 1/2 of the frosting was an excellent balance to the creaminess and airiness of the frosting, nutella and meringue cake. They really 'ground' the cupcake.
Overall impressions from external tasters were all very positive. Dan claimed that these were closer to spot on than the other 2 previous recipes. Definitely a winner recipe and with a few tiny alterations to the cake and the frosting and sturdy cupcake papers, these cupcakes will fly off the shelf.
Main points:
- Fill the cupcake papers 3/4 full if not more...
- Add additional flour and ground hazelnut to the recipe.
- Melted chocolate into a buttercream frosting will work fine.
- Correct cupcake papers will be very important.
