Chocolate vanilla walnut cake

Baking a delicious cake is all about coming up with a perfect combination of flavors. And there are so many of them. Combinations like chocolate and strawberries, chocolate and vanilla are all classics and there is nothing better than making a classic even more better. Usually adding walnuts or hazelnuts will do the trick because they go so well with chocolate and vanilla will soften the two and bring them up to a new level.

In my family we usually make cakes for big occasions like holidays or birthdays.. at least we did until I started cooking. My mother never baked cakes, it was my grandma who made them – as I mentioned it before in one or two of the posts. So nowadays there is a cake every week or so. I have friends asking me over and over to bake something, colleagues at work, family members and every chance I get, I bake. It relaxes me to spend time in the kitchen, listening to the sounds of the knife cutting into fruit or chocolate, the smell of melted chocolate or vanilla bean in hot milk, the warmth spreading through the house. For me it is all about that feeling!

This is the cake I actually made for the first time last year, and last year wasn’t as good for me as I hoped, there were ups and downs. I transferred from my old college, I didn’t travel as much, but there were some great things like starting this blog and meeting great people from all around the world through their stories and delicious recipes they post, picking up a great new part time job as a student, starting and passing my first semester of Chinese language, passing all of my exams. Even though life is never perfect I’m an optimist, taking life as it goes, every bad thing that happens can be looked from another perspective and be seen in another light. Life is a jurney and there are chances on every step, it’s all up to you to grab them before they pass by. My jurney is filled with a mix of all kinds of interests and there would proabably be a hole in it if there wasn’t a passion for cooking.

Hope you get a chance to try the recipe and stop by in a few days for the next recipe! Enjoy!

Preparation: 35 min                                  Cook time: 1 h 20 min                                       Servings: 8

Ingredients

• 6 egg yolks
• 6 egg whites
• 250 g walnuts, ground
• 100 g walnuts
• 3 tbsp bread crumbs
• 60 g sugar
• 4 eggs
• 80 g sugar
• 200 g chocolate
• 250 g butter
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 4 egg yolks
• 500 ml milk
• 100 g sugar
• 50 g corn starch
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 250 g butter

How to

1. Preheat the oven to 180 – 200°C. Butter up a square cake pan.
2. In a large bowl mix together 6 egg yolks with 60 g of sugar, stir in walnuts and bread crumbs. Beat 6 egg whites in a second bowl until stiff. Stir in egg whites manually into an egg yolk mixture. Pour in the mixture in a square cake pan. Bake the cake in a preheated oven for about 40 min.
3. In a medium sauce pan heat 500 ml of milk to the point of boiling. In a small bowl mix 4 egg yolks, 100 g of sugar, 50 g of corn starch and 2 tsp of vanilla extract. Pour the mixture in milk while it’s over medium heat before it boils. When the mixture boils, stir until thick. Cool down the mixture and mix in 250 g of butter.
4. Mix together 4 eggs, 80 g of sugar, add chocolate and heat it over steam so the chocolate melts. Heat until thick and remove from steam. In a cooled down chocolate mixture mix in 250 g of soft butter and lemon juice.
5. Cut the cake in half and spread vanilla cream, top with the second half of the cake and spread chocolate cream over it. Finish the cake with toasted walnuts dipped in melted chocolate.