Recipe: Chocolate and Hazelnut Brownie Cake (Delia Smith)

One of the first things I tried from Delia's cookbook is her American brownies recipe. We love these very much, and I have made it countless times and it always turns out well. I was browsing her website when I had to make a birthday cake for my dad recently and came across the Chocolate and Hazelnut Brownie Cake recipe (it seems like she has taken this off her website recently as it can no longer be found there). After studying the recipe, I realised this was her American brownie recipe frosted with whipping cream and decorated with toasted hazelnuts and cocoa powder. Even before I made it, I knew this was going to be a winner.

Rich, chocolatey, moist with whipped cream and crunchy toasted hazelnuts = SINFUL!

As always, the brownie was easy to make. After it has been cooled, the brownie is cut down the centre lengthways to make a double-layered cake before being frosted with whipped cream. Usually, we would only eat 2-3 small pieces before it gets cloying, but with the whipped cream, I feel that it tones down some of the sweetness and before we knew it, the whole brownie cake was down to the last piece! (Birthday boy doesn't like cakes which are too sweet, so this was absolutely perfect!) No point getting out a tupperware to store the last piece, so we happily shared the last piece amongst us ;)

Chocolate and Hazelnut Brownie Cake

Recipe adapted from Delia Smith 
Preparation time: 15-20 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes
Serves 8-10

Ingredients
110g butter
50g dark chocolate
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
200g caster sugar
50g plain flour, sifted
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
70g walnuts

To decorate

50g lightly toasted hazelnuts

Cocoa powder, to dust

275ml whipping cream


1. Preheat oven to 180°C.

2. Line a baking tin measuring 6 x 10 inches (15 x 25.5cm) with greaseproof paper. Bring the paper up to at least 1 inch above the edge of the tin. (Note: I used a 5 x 9 inch tin, baking time 40 minutes)

3. Place the butter and the chocolate (broken up into small pieces) into a large, heatproof bowl fitted over a saucepan of barely simmering water and allow the chocolate to melt, making sure the base of the bowl doesn't touch the water.

4. Then beat the mixture till smooth, remove it from the heat and simply stir in all the other ingredients till thoroughly blended.

5. Now spread the mixture evenly into the prepared tin and bake on the centre shelf for 30 minutes.

6. Leave the cake in the tin for 15 minutes to cool, then remove it from the tin, and turn it out on to a cooling tray. Strip off the lining paper and, when it's absolutely cold, carefully cut the cake in half, down the centre lengthways, so you're left with 2 oblongs. 

7. Now whip the cream until it forms soft peaks and spread half of it thickly along one half. Position the other half on top, then spread the rest of the cream all over the cake, covering it completely. Then decorate with the roughly chopped nuts and, if you like, a dusting of cocoa powder. If all the cake isn't eaten, to keep it fresh, store inside an airtight container in the fridge.

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I am submitting this to the "Cook Like Delia Smith" bloghop which I am co-hosting with Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids and Mich of Piece of Cake. To join, simply cook or bake any recipe from any Delia Smith websites or cookbooks and blog hop with us for the whole month of March 2013.

Your post must be a current post i.e. posted in March 2013 - please do not link older posts.Please mention Cook like a Star in your post and link back to Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids, Mich of Piece of Cake and Baby Sumo of Eat your heart out.

You can get the HTML code here: get the InLinkz code (Click on the link, copy and paste the HTML code into your blog post where you want the blog hop list to appear. Make sure you are in HTML mode when you paste in the code)

Happy cooking! Do check out the other bloggers recipe below:

*This recipe was featured on Asian Food Channel's Facebook page on 7 April 2013.