Chocolate and Hazelnut Mousse Cake

For Fathers Day my little girl and I got in the kitchen  to whip up this fluffy mousse cake for her Daddy.  He absolutely loves Nutella, often sneaking spoonfuls straight from the jar when he thinks no-one's looking so we decided to use chocolate and hazelnut as the main flavours, incorporating some of his favourite sweets into the decoration.

She loves to use the electric hand mixer as she's now big enough to hold it on her own so this cake is made up of layers of whisked chocolate sponge, whipped hazelnut cream, Nutella and milk chocolate mousse, lots and lots of whisking!!!!  I definately wouldn't recommend attempting this by hand unless you want a serious arm workout!!

The whisked sponge doesn't contain any butter so its super light and fluffy.  It's a very mild chocolate flavour, nothing rich or fudgy as that could easily become sickly when combined with the sweet fillings.  It's sort of like eating a very decadant swiss roll!  The hazelnuts provide a nice crunch against the soft whipped cream and mousse.

The idea for the chocolate collar came from The Pink Whisk although I used milk chocolate rather than white.  Next time I think I would use dark as the bitterness would help to offset the sweetness of the mousse and Nutella.  It looks tricky but was actually quite straightforward, if a little messy!!

As this is a fatless sponge it will only keep for a day or two and any leftovers will need to be stored in the fridge because of the double cream.

For the Cake :

4 large eggs, room temperature
1 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup plain flour
1/4 cup cornflour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.  Grease and line 2 x 20cm sandwich tins
Crack the eggs into a large bowl and add the sugar.
Whisk using an electric hand whisk for 10 minutes until very pale, fluffy and tripled in volume.
Sift over the dry ingredients and gently fold in, being careful to mix thoroughly but not knock all the air out.
Divide equally between the tins and gently smooth out.  Bake for 20 - 25 minutes until risen and a skewer comes out clean.
Allow to cool in the tins.  These cakes are very fragile so can fall apart if you try to move them while still warm.
Once cool, run a knife around the edge to loosen and turn out.  Use a large serrated knife to gently cut each cake in half horizontally using a sawing motion.

For the Hazelnut Cream:

1 cup double cream
2 tsp hazlenut syrup ( I used Monin sugarfree, if making this only for adults you could use Frangelico hazelnut liqueur instead)
1/3 cup chopped toasted hazelnuts

Whisk the cream and syrup until it forms soft peaks and is spreadable.  Fold through the chopped nuts.
Chill until needed.

For the Mousse:

1 cup double cream
100g chocolate, chopped (I used milk but use whatever is your favourite)

Place the chocolate into a large bowl
Heat the cream until scalding then pour over the chocolate.  Leave to stand for 5 minutes then stir gently until melted and smooth.
Allow to cool to room temperature then whisk until thick and fluffy.

(To make the mousse lighter you could then fold through whisked egg whites but I left these out as I was making this for kids.)

To Assemble the Cake:

3 - 4 tbsp Nutella
1 Fudge bar, chopped
50g white sugarpaste
150g milk chocolate, melted and slighly cooled

Place the first layer of sponge onto a plate / stand.  Spread over 1/2 of your hazelnut cream.
Top with the second sponge layer.
Stir the Nutella to make it runnier then spread over evenly.
On goes the third sponge and the remaining hazelnut cream.
Pop the final sponge layer on top and cover the whole cake with chocolate mousse.  Don't worry about getting the sides too neat as they will be covered by the chocolate collar.
To decorate, my daughter rolled out some sugarpaste and cut out letters to write 'Best Daddy'.  She then wanted to use chopped Fudge bar as this is his favourite but more chopped hazelnuts would probably be more appropriate!!
The final step is the chocolate collar, step by step instructions for this can be found on www.thepinkwhisk.co.uk

We really enjoyed making this cake together as my daughter was able to do so much of it herself. She felt really proud giving it to her Daddy, almost as much as he enjoyed eating it!!