Tante Ily's Hazelnut Cake

Today is my sister's birthday - I won't say her age but I will say she looks a lot younger than that number. Where she is right now is December 14th - if I wait to post this I'll miss the birthday, so bear with me on the advance posting.

In honor of my birthday this year she posted some photos she knew I would like. As my talents don't lie in photography, I won't be doing the same. However, I would like to share with her (and everyone else in the blogosphere) a cake recipe. This recipe (along with many others) was given to me by Tante Caroline as a wedding gift. The original recipe comes from Tante Ily (Caroline's aunt) - the best baker I have ever had the pleasure to know.

Happy Birthday Jenn - hope to share this cake with you in person soon!
(keep in mind that Caroline speaks in colorful terms - not very precise but pretty!)

Hazelnut Cake with Chocolate or Mocha Cream Frosting
(The Mocha cream frosting is the preferred, but I have not a foolproof recipe for you - I, too experiment each time. So, use the chocolate; it is the same as for Sacher. Or be courageous and try Julia Child's reicpe.....)

(for two large cake tins, buttered and floured)

1lb. Hazelnuts (almonds are good too), some oven roasted*, ground
1T. finely roasted coffee
2 1/2 c. veryfine sugar ("verifine" = is between granular and powdered)
12 eggs (separated)
apricot or red currant jelly, sugar, schnapps

Oven set at 350 degrees F

Beat 1/2 the sugar into yolks till bubbly (use some vanilla sugar if possible***)

Beat whites with 1/4 cream of tartar (to stabilize the whites) - or use pinch of salt. Add in the rest of sugar and beat till smooth and glossy.

Probably using a large salad bowl, combine gently folding the yolk mixture with the whites and the ground nuts

Spread into cake tins and bake for 25-30 min.? May need a bit much longer? Test again with wooden cake tester till comes out moist, not wet. (just did this one recently and as this is an increased recipe, the timing is no longer valid)

Dump onto rack, slice with floss, glaze (as in Sacher recipe) topsides. Assemble. Allow to cool well and frost.

The chocolate = as in Sacher recipe. Or, look into Julia Child for the Mocha. This, too, keeps long in the icebox, without mouse intervention.

*To roast hazelnuts: place on oven cookie sheet in a hot oven and allow to bake till the skins start to split. Keep roasting till nut meats gain a nice "suntan". Remove from oven and put out to cool (winter window is best as the skins virtually pop off). Then roll them around between your hands to help some more of the skins off. Outdoors, then blow away the loose skins., the nut meats remain. Not all skins are gone but a lot. Do this with a generous handful of the total and you will achieve a wonderful aroma. Then grind all nuts, preferably in old hand mill, you know the type you clamp-screw to the table. These are the finest (your nuts are acting in place of flour) results - the bought ground nuts are rougher and haven't got the roasted quality. As we are dealing with a true T. Ily recipe....you might have fun training your store-bought-cake friends (do young slim career people still eat cake?) to experience what really good ingredients can amount up to (No baking powder! No flavor enhancers! No emulsifiers, no coloring, no preservatives - hey, what have we got here?)

**Vanilla sugar can be purchased, is, however, usually not quite the real thing - and WE don't accept "Vanillin" (Dr. horrible Oetker's substitute for real Bourbon Vanilla), do we! So, buy yourself a couple of vanilla beans - expensive, but cheap in the long run. Slit them open lengthwise. Scratch the black soft center out and use it for a nice vanilla pudding or vanilla sauce for over fruit, etc. Then take a tin or jar with lid and fill with the "verifine" sugar and the scratched-out bean hulls. After just a week, but for months to come, the entire sugar will serve as vanilla sugar - but the real thing.
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[I made this cake using the mocha frosting from Julia Child - yummy! The Sacher recipe for the glaze is just spreading the jelly on the cake while it is hot so it's absorbed by the cake. And I think that's 1/4 teaspoon of cream of tartar for the egg whites. You also might want to line the tins with parchment paper. Good luck!]