Italian Hazelnut Cake from the Bleu Ribbon Kitchen

The Newest Kitchen Chick: Sydney Anderson

Today, we’d like to introduce you to a fellow Kitchen Chick, Sydney Anderson. Sydney is from Texas and currently studies at Le Cordon Bleu. She is a fabulous baker and can make ANYTHING taste delicious. (Trust us! We’ve had her pecan pie and it’s to die for!) As head baker for a dallas-area bakery, Sydney has perfected her process down to a literal science, so when she presented the idea of baking for Kitchen Chicks, we JUMPED on the opportunity. How could we not?

“I asked one of my mentors, Chef Choe, for the best dessert recipe in the Bleu Ribbon Kitchen files and he suggested the Italian Hazelnut Cake,” said Sydney during one of our kitchen chats. Chef Choe was right! You guys are going to LOVE this recipe. This cake is delightful and comes with a simple syrup topping that was perfect! We ate the entire pan in one sitting. Feeling fat later was totally worth it for this warm and comforting cake. Not only is the taste perfectly balanced, the difficulty level is not advanced. Anyone with a bit of experience should be able to make this cake and love the outcome.

NOTE: If you’re interested in making this recipe at Le Cordon Bleu, make sure to check out the school’s Italian Series Workshops.

A little bit of info on the hazelnuts in this recipe

Something to remember about this recipe is that you will need toasted hazelnuts to make this work. You can toast the hazelnuts in the oven (which takes a bit longer) or in a pan. The shells should start to crack a bit and the color will be a slightly darker brown. Then, add them to the flour according the recipe.

“When they start to smell toasty, they’re toasted” – Sydney

The Bleu Ribbone Kitchen Italian Hazelnut Cake Recipe

Ingredients for the cake:

• 3/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup hazelnuts, toasted, divided
• 8 Tbs butter, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 zest of an orange
• 1/4 cup whole milk

How to Make the Cake

STEP 1: Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Grease and flour an 8 x 2.5 inch cake pan and line the bottom with parchment paper. (We used a bread pan and the result was still great!)

STEP 2: Place the flour, baking powder, salt and 3/4 cup of the toasted hazelnuts in the bowl of a food processor; pulse the machine a few times to begin grinding the nuts and then run it until the hazelnuts are finely ground into the flour (about 30 – 45 seconds). Set aside. It should look something like this:

Step 3:  Finely chop the remaining 1/4 cup of toasted hazelnuts and set aside.

Step 4: Using a stand mixer with a peddle attachment, combine the butter and sugar (You can use a hand mixer and a bowl if you do not have a stand mixer. Stand mixer is easier). Mix on medium speed until the mixture is light in color and fluffy (or about 3 – 4 minutes).

Step 5: Reduce the speed to low and start to incorporate the eggs, and the egg yolk, one at a time ensuring that they are completely incorporated into the mixture between each addition. You may need to scrap the sides of the bowl to make this happen, chicks.  Add the vanilla and orange zest and mix to combine. (Never zested an orange? See below).

Step 6: With the mixer set on low, add in the flour and hazelnut mixture in three parts,  and the milk in two parts, alternating with the milk, and beginning and ending with the flour. (In other words: flour, milk, flour, milk, flour).  Mix until the batter is just combined, then stir in the remaining chopped hazelnuts (from step 3).

Step 7: Pour your batter into the prepared cake pan, and baked for about 30 minutes. The cake should set and a toothpick should come out clean when inserted into the middle.

Step 8: While the cake is baking, prepare the simple syrup.  Add simple syrup to the top of the warm cake.

Step 9: Once the cake cools, remove it from pan and set on a serving dish (if you can wait that long. We couldn’t!)

Ingredients for the simple syrup

• 1/4 cup + 2 Tbs of water
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 Tbs orange liqueur (we used orange extract and it worked just fine)

How to make the simple syrup

Step 1: Place a small pot over medium-high heat with the and sugar. Bring up to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar.

Step 2: Remove the pot from the heat and stir in the liqueur or extract. Leave to cool.

Step 3: Once the cake comes out of the oven, brush the simple syrup on top while the cake is still warm. Set the cake aside and let it cool completely

Optional (but recommended because it was awesome)

After the cake cools,  dust the top with powder sugar to your likely and then EAT!

Blueberry Lemon Cake

Need a good refreshing dessert for summer?  This may be just the recipe for you.  It’s dense like pound cake, with a light lemon flavor and filled with blueberries.  The crust is just crunchy enough without being tough, and well, we just couldn’t stop eating it.  I’ve seen a lot of recipes like it online, so I decided to try my own hand at combining the right ingredients with just the right cooking time for a flavorful result.  This is a long time in the oven though, so plan to be home for a couple of hours.

Guilt Free Homemade Ice Cream

I have a serious addiction to ice cream.  It’s really bad.  I can’t hardly pass a Dairy Queen without salivating.  I had to find another alternative.  My goodness!  I’m getting bigger by the minute!  The Kitchen Chicks are beginning to focus on making our lives the best they can be, and certainly being overweight isn’t the best I can be.  There must be healthy alternatives to the processed, sugar laden ice cream we buy in stores and restaurants right?  Well, there is!  I found a couple on the net that only require a food processor and a few ingredients.

30 Ideas for Decorating Desserts

When it comes to desserts, the Kitchen Chicks know a thing or two. They aren’t always pretty, but they are most certainly delicious! But, that got me thinking – how do you make beautiful desserts? Then it occurred to me that beautiful desserts, like a lovely home, are typically decorated appropriately. So, I came up with 30 decorative ideas (some classic, some modern) to make all of your dessert dreams come true.

How to Get a Perfectly Flaky Pie Crust – 9 Common Problems Solved

Pies. The dessert of America. Fifty million pumpkin pies are sold during the Thanksgiving holiday alone and the chances that you will make a pie this year are high! Whether you are making a lemon buttermilk, cherry, pecan, blackberry, chocolate, a meat pie, or any other pie, it’s important to know how to make the perfect flaky pie crust. We’ve collected the most common problems and coupled them with the solutions to make sure your pies are the best in the neighborhood!