A bag of fresh blackberries and leftover hazelnut paste resulted in this cake.
Hazelnut-génoise layers, filled with blackberry-Mascarpone, and frosted with hazelnut-cream-cheese-buttercream.
(Pictures courtesy of JB)
I did not take notes while making this improvised cake in a friend’s kitchen, so I can’t provide a detailed recipe. Take any hazelnut-génoise recipe (I substituted leftover hazelnut paste for ground hazelnut and some of the butter) and bake a cake base. Cut in three layers. Cook the blackberries with sugar and some water to a sweet, thick syrup. Once completely cold, fold in Mascarpone to balance the sweetness and create a thick filling. Use 8oz cream cheese, 8oz butter, and 4oz confectioner’s sugar to whip up the cream-cheese buttercream. Flavor the buttercream with hazelnut paste or hazelnut syrup (if desired). Don’t soak the genoise layers during assembly if the blackberry-mascarpone filling is a little runny.
I just found this blog of yours! I wish I could take pictures of all your creations! I hope you two are staying warm and well fed 🙂
Also this is still the best cake I’ve ever tasted.
Also also, Benedikt, you’ll be saddened to hear that my apartment in Miami doesn’t have an oven. I know, right? I wonder what you would do in that situation. Virginia, I bet you would help him out with some creative microwave baking. Microwave cookies, now that’s an idea? Um…
Jessica! What a nice surprise! Yes, the microwave is a nice cooking tool. I recently tried my first microwave cake. If it works out better next time, I’ll even put pictures up on the blog 😉