Hazelnut Braid

© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2009

I love the flavor of hazelnut in cakes. And marchpane is intensifying the flavor of hazelnuts even more. Here is a cake which not only has a nice structure but has an intense hazelnut flavor. Not too sweet though.


Hazelnut Braid
(for one braid)

...for the filling:
100 g hazelnuts (grounded)
100 g marchpane*
1 egg
50 g sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla flavor
1 tablespoon rum (or milk, if you don't want to bake with rum)

...for the dough:
300 g all purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
160 g Curd
6 tablespoons milk
6 tablespoons oil
90 g sugar
2 teaspoon vanilla flavor
1 dash salt

...for the glaze:
4 tablespoons peach or apricot jam
2 tablespoons water

* Marchpane: in German "Marzipan" (Spain: mazapán, France: massepain, Italy: marzapane). Sometimes you find the name almond paste. It is a raw mixture for baking and not the end product.

Prepare the filling first. Roast the grounded hazelnuts over medium high heat slightly. Set aside. Mix the rest of the ingredients for the filling until homogenous. I'm using a fork for this step, because so you can easily mash the marchpane with the egg and other ingredients. Add the hazelunuts and mix. Set aside.

Put the curd into a sieve which you have lined out with some paper towels. This step will make the curd more dry. After 15 to 30 minutes the curd is in general dry enough for the dough.

Prepare the dough. Mix flour and baking powder and sieve into a bowl. Add the other ingredients for the dough. Mix for one minute on high speed with your mixer and dough hooks. Do not mix too long, because dough would get sticky.

Knead a few times with hands to form the dough. Then roll it out to a size of about 40 by 30 cm. Spread the filling evenly on the dough leaving about 1 cm free from each side. Form a roll fom the longest side. Half the roll lengthwise and fold it apart. With the sliced side pointing upward form a braid. Press the ends slightly so that they will not fall apart while baking.

Bake in a preheated oven at 170 C on a greased baking tray for 40 to 45 minutes. After 30 minutes you should watch the cake. If the cake is getting too brown covered it with some baking paper.

While baking prepare the glaze. Mix jam and water in a small pot and let it cook on medium high heat for 5 to 10 minutes to thicken it.

Take out the cake of the oven and while hot glaze it. Let it cool completely on a cooling rack.



© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2009


About the photos
To show the structure better I sliced the cake a placed two slices beside the cake but leave most of the cake to show the braid structure. As reference for the filling I have used hazelnuts and hazelnuts leaves which are in season now. They shouldn't be too perfect to avoid a too staged impression. Composition wise the photos are based on a brown green contrast for an earthern impression. The use of the silver plate should emphasize the rustic look. In the first photo I have used a T/S lens which gave me the chance to use a top down angle but still have the focal plain like in a lower angled version.