Chocolate and Hazelnut Entremet Cake
A delicate chocolate mousse with a creamy hazelnut mousse insert made with a hazelnut pralin that is made from scratch with caramel and nuts, sitting on a moist brownie topped with toasted hazelnuts. The entremet is covered in a dark chocolate mirror glaze, made with cocoa powder, just tastes just as delicious and completes the whole dessert.
I’m a big fan of entremet, they are a fun way to combine different flavors and textures, and they are visually delightful.
For today’s dessert, I went with chocolate and hazelnut because who doesn’t love Ferrero Rocher? The insert is made of a rich hazelnut mousse that is more the creamy than light side. I chose to make my own hazelnut pralin or butter which you can substitute with a store-bought hazelnut butter. If you decide to make your own hazelnut butter though, you will never go back to the store-bought one.
Instead of Hazelnuts, you can use almonds, pecans, or even a combination of both or more.
Making an entremet is very easy and does not require a lot of baking time but it needs a good task organization as you will need to be freezing elements and mixing others at the right temperature. It’s all a game of temperature and time.
You want to start making the entremet at least one day in advance before you will be serving. The insert needs to be frozen before it is assembled, and again the assembled entremet should be frozen to take the shape of the mold.
I used the Solikomart Diamond Buche Silicone Baking Set mold since I made the dessert around Christmas time. Using the same recipe you can use any shape of mold you prefer.
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How to make chocolate mirror glaze
You can either use that recipe to make other entremet shapes or use other entremet recipes that you can find on my channel and blog to make a buche entremet and this beautiful shape.
Watch the video recipe
Chocolate and Hazelnut Entrement
Equipment
- Silicone mold
Ingredients
Hazelnut Praline (Nut Butter)
- 200 g Whole hazelnuts
- 100 g White sugar
- 30 ml Water 2tbsp
- A pinch of salt
Creamy Hazelnut Mousse
- 150 g Hazelnut pralin (Nut butter) You can alternatively use store bought nut butter of choice
- 3 sheets Gelatine 7g
- 5 g Powder sugar 2tbsp
- 120 ml Heavy cream 1/2 cup
Brownie for 20*6 cm / 8*2.5 inches
- 100 g Dark chocolate
- 42 g Butter
- 1 Egg
- 27 g All-purpose flour
- A pinch of salt
- 2 tbsp Hazelnuts or nuts of choice
Chocolate Mousse
- 200 g Dark chocolate you can use milk chocolate instead of the dark one or a combination of both if you prefer to
- 60 ml Heavy cream For the ganache
- 6 sheets Gelatine 14g
- 550 ml Heavy cream 2.5 cups
Instructions
Hazelnut Praline (Nut Butter)
- Cook the sugar with the water until the sugar turns into caramel, then add the Hazelnuts with a pinch of salt.
- Keep stirring until the sugar melts again and covers the nuts.
- Remove from the heat and place on a parchment paper or a silicon matt until it cools and hardens.
- Use a food processor and process it until it turns into a nut butter texture.
Creamy Hazelnut Mousse
- Soak the gelatine sheets in cold water.
- Remove 150g from the nut butter and warm it either in the microwave or on a bain-marie.
- Squeeze the gelatine sheets and add them to the hot hazelnut pralin till they melt and are well combined.
- Whip the cold heavy cream with the powder sugar until it's stiff and airy but still soft.
- Incorporate about a quarter of the whipped cream into the Hazelnut butter and gelatine mixture.
- Add the mixture to the remaining whipped cream and gently fold it in.
- Place the mousse in your silicon insert mold and freeze it for at least 6 hours before assembling the cake.
Brownie for the base
- Preheat the oven to Melt the chocolate with the butter together
- Add the sugar, the egg, salt, and flour and combine.
- Spread the batter on a baking tin the size of your mold base then top with the nuts.
- Bake the brownie for 10 minutes in an oven that was preheated to 105C / 302F.
Chocolate Mousse
- Soak the gelatine sheets in cold water for 10 minutes.
- Simmer the heavy cream, then squeeze the gelatine sheets and add them to the heavy cream to melt.
- Pour the cream and gelatine mixture onto the chocolate and make sure to cover it. The chocolate should be in the chips form or chopped.
- Allow it to sit for s few minutes then start stirring till the chocolate melts. If you still have pieces of chocolate, microwave for 20 seconds intervals until you have a smooth ganache.
- Whip the cold cream until you have a light creamy texture.
- Fold the ganache into the whipped cream gently and in 3 to 4 goes.
Entrement Assembly
- Add half the chocolate mousse to the silicone mold
- Remove the Hazelnut insert from the freezer, unmold it and place it on top of the chocolate mousse, then add the remaining mousse to cover it. You want the insert to be surrounded with the mousse and centered.
- Add the brownie base and slightly press it to stick to the mousse, make sure the upper side of the brownie with the nuts goes on top of the mousse.
- Freeze the entremet for 8 hours or overnight.
- Unmold immediately after removing it from the freezer and decorate to taste.
- Check the link to the chocolate mirror glaze.
- Allow it to thaw for 2 hours in the refrigerator or 1 hour at room temperature.