Happy Birthday Hubby; Chocolate Meringue Cake

It has already been 10 days since my last post here...don't get me started on the backlogs. :P. In fact this will be my first time using this new blogger interface...hope everything goes smoothly. :P Have been baking mooncakes non stop for the past week....kinda crazy but overall a fun project. Glad it's over now, and I finally get to do some blogging. ;) Besides the mooncakes, I still managed to bake my dear husband a birthday cake as well. (it almost sound like it's less important, haha!) ;P No no no, I actually had it planned months ahead what I wanted to bake for his birthday cake. I can only go with chocolate flavor since that is his favorite....nothing wrong since I love chocolate too. ;)) I remembered I ate this really yummy chocolate cake at a blogger gathering last year. It's call Chocolate Meringue Cake shared with us from Doris of Tested & Tasted. Thanks Doris!! It left a wonderful impression and I knew I had to replicate it in my own kitchen. 

I have one word for this cake....DELICIOUS. I almost forgotten how yummy it tasted until I made this again myself. ;) I was very glad I made a big one, hahaha! I remembered everyone at the blogger gathering was raving about it too. You can't go wrong with that right? ;)

I modified Doris's recipe to make 1.5X of the recipe, plus I wanted a taller cake too. ;) Plus I used my own chocolate swiss roll recipe as I really love that cake texture. So I will repost my recipe here for reference. My cake came to be 10" by 7" and approximately 4" tall. If you prefer a smaller version, please refer to Doris's blog.

Ingredients for Chocolate Meringue Cake: (Makes 10"x14" rectangle)
Chocolate Sponge layer 
Egg yolk mixture

33g unsalted butter

102g egg yolk 

33g caster sugar

26g cocoa powder (I used valrohna)

26ml cold water

Egg white mixture

156g egg white (a little more or less is ok)

78gcaster sugar

59g cake flour

• (refer to here for detail step by step instructions )
•  Once baked, let cool and cut half.  Each rectangle should be 10"x7".

Chocolate Ganache
300ml fresh heavy cream
60g unsalted butter
360g quality dark chocolate (I used 66% cocoa Valrohna)
 *Note that I reserved about 1/2 cup of chocolate ganache to mix with 1cup of vanilla Swiss Meringue buttercream.  (used when assembling the cake later) But if you prefer not to cover the side of the cake, you can use up all the ganache when layering.

• Chopped and place the chocolate in a large mixing bowl.
• Heat up the heavy cream and butter until butter melted and the mixture almost boil. 
• Gently pour the cream mixture over the chocolate and let seat for 5 minutes untouched.
• After 5 mins, gently stir mixture together until it comes to a nice shiny smooth ganache.

Nut Meringue:
7 egg whites
130g caster sugar
75g walnut, toasted and chopped'
75g almond meal
30g bread flour

• Beat the egg whites until foamy, then continue to beat and gradually add in the sugar and beat till stiff peaks.

• Then stir in the chopped walnuts, almond meal and sifted bread flour, stir gently till everything is combined without deflating the meringue.
• Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease and line a 14" x 10" baking tray. Gently spread the nut meringue onto the prepared tray. 
• Bake in the oven for 15-18mins till light golden brown in colour.

 

•  Once cooled, slice the nutty meringue into 2 rectangles, each measures 10" by 7".

 Assemble:

• Place one layer of the chocolate sponge cake as the first base. Then spread a layer of chilled chocolate ganache over the sponge. Next top it with one half do the nut meringue. Again spread a layer of chocolate ganache over the top. Repeat this step until you used up all the layers.

 

• Then trim of the sides of the cake to make it neater. Spread the chocolate buttercream around the four sides of the cake to cover up the layer. Note that you can opt not to do this step, but I wanted a neater look.
  
  
• At this point, you can choose to dust the top of the cake with cocoa powder or decorate the cake as desired. Like I said before, I'm not a fan of eating powdery bitter cocoa powder, I left it out.

I really like how the soft sponge cake and the nutty meringue come together and gave a really nice texture. You might be wondering if the meringue tasted like a meringue cookie...oh no, it almost tasted like a soft sponge cake bursting with nutty flavor. 

A shot showing all the layers in the cake. If you prefer other nuts, by all means, choose the ones you like. I think I will try hazelnut next time, it will be even yummier. I think this cake will appearing in my kitchen again year end, it'll make a fabulous X'mas cake too. ;)

Okay folks, gonna end my post here. Will try to rush out another 2 more posts before the month ends. *fingers crossed* Have a great one all!