Oh Sweet Day Tackles Our Chocolate Ganache Hazelnut Cake

The Perfect Cake: Your Ultimate Guide to Classic, Modern, and Whimsical Cakes contains an impressive roster of recipes, from multilayer cakes to rustic fruit-topped treats, elegant tortes, beautiful bundt cakes, filled cupcakes—and even cake pops.

When Fanny from the delightful food blog Oh Sweet Day was flipping through our cookbook, The Perfect Cake, she was immediately drawn to our recipe for Swiss Hazelnut Cake. The reason was simple: Hazelnuts are one of her favorite nuts. But once she read more about the recipe, it was the origin of the cake that appealed to her just as much as the ingredients.

"The Swiss Haus bakery in Philadelphia has sold this sweet, nutty cake since 1923," reads the recipe's introduction in The Perfect Cake. "It features light, airy hazelnut cake; delicate, pillowy vanilla frosting; and a generous garnish of chocolate shavings. The Swiss Haus pastry chef wouldn’t disclose the recipe, so we decided to play detective."

To replicate the flavor and texture of the original, we ground the toasted hazelnuts (with their skins) in a food processor, then substituted this hazelnut "flour" for a portion of the cake flour in our chiffon cake base. And since meringue buttercream frostin is quite a project, we found an excellent shortcut using marshmallow creme.

“A refreshingly light, yet nutty, cotton-soft chiffon cake infused with the flavors of ground hazelnut, this hazelnut cake recipe is the best one I’ve ever tried!” Fanny wrote about the showstopping result.

While our original recipe uses marshmallow frosting, Fanny chose to go a simpler route and put her own spin on the cake.

“I chose to match this lovely cake with a thin layer of chocolate ganache and a giant cloud of pillowy whipped cream," she wrote. "So so heavenly that you won’t have any guilt to go for a second serving.”

What’s your favorite kind of cake? Tell us in the comments below and visit Fanny’s blog for the full recipe for Chocolate Hazelnut Cake!