Just like the European Style Hazelnut Genoise from my “past life”
Vegan Hazelnut Cake with chocolate truffle ganache filling and light chocolate hazelnut buttercream icing
Genoise cakes are characteristically supposed to be on the “dry” side.
Although I don’t like to say “dry” because “dry” means “bad~ I just mean dry like as in a traditional genoise cake. LOL
So without going on about the classifications of what each cake is and how they differ
Just trust me on this one and make this vegan hazelnut cake!
For the decor you should not pass up the easiest two ingredient truffles you will ever make!
Reserve some of the ganache recipe so you can make these quick truffles in no time
This website may contain links as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, which means when you click a link and make a purchase through my website I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you
Notes for Success:
In the video tutorial I did not use a soaking syrup for the cake but I would really recommend that you do!
With or without the hazelnut liquor as it really adds to the overall success of this cake!
The recipe below reflects the updated version for this vegan hazelnut cake!
Almond Flour is a great substitute for the hazelnut flour if you prefer!
This recipe makes 3- 7″ cake layers but you can divide the batter equally between 2-8″ cake pans if you do not have the 7″ pans
Use any Egg Replacer of your choice here, I have been using Bob’s Red Mill *not sponsored
CLICK HERE FOR THE YOUTUBE VIDEO TUTORIAL FOR HOW TO MAKE THIS CAKE
Hazelnut Sponge Cake
Ingredients
For the Cake
- Vegan Butter 10 Tablespoons (140g)
- Granulated Sugar 1½ cup (300g)
- Plant milk 1 cup (237ml)
- Apple Cider Vinegar 1 teaspoon (5ml)
- Vanilla Extract 2 teaspoons (10ml)
- All Purpose Flour 2 cups (250g)
- Egg replacer 4 teaspoons *see notes
- Salt 1 teaspoon (6g)
- Baking Powder 4 teaspoons (20g)
- Hazelnut Flour 1 cup (105g) + additional ¼ cup for rolling the truffles *optional
for the drip
For the Chocolate Cinnamon Hazelnut Buttercream
- 1 Recipe American Buttercream
- Cinnamon 1 teaspoon
- Hazelnut Flour 6 Tablespoons
- ¼ cup of ganache reserved from recipe above
for the cake soak
- Simple Syrup: 1/4 cup water + 1/4 cup sugar + 2 Tbs hazelnut liqueur optional
Instructions
- Grease & parchment line your cake pans
- Preheat the oven to 350°F
- First prepare the cake batter by creaming the room temperature vegan butter with the granulated sugar until light and fluffy and this will take approximately 4-5 minutes.
- Combine the plant milk with the vinegar & vanilla extract
- Sift all the dry ingredients together (including the nut flour and the egg replacer.)
- Add about ¼ cup of the milk mixture to the creaming mixture just until combined then stop & Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl to ensure an even non-lumpy mixture.
- Add 1/3 of the sifted dry ingredients while mixing on low and mix just until incorporated
- Add half of the remaining milk mixture and mix just until combined.
- Always scrape the bottom & sides of the bowl when needed.
- Add another 1/3 of the dry ingredients and then the last of the milk and then the last of the dry ingredients.
- Mix well for about 10 seconds on medium to high speed to develop the batter and then portion the batter evenly between your greased and parchment lined cake pans
- Bake immediately in a preheated 350°F oven for approximately 35 minutes or when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with moist crumbs.
- Be careful not to over bake or you will have a dry cake.
- Cool the cakes in the pans until you can easily touch them without burning your fingers then flip them out onto a cooling rack to cool completely.
- Meanwhile prepare the vegan ganache by combining the finely chopped chocolate with the plant milk in a large heavy bottom saucepot over medium heat and whisking constantly until it is all melted and smooth.
- Reserve the ganache at room temperature while you prepare the buttercream recipe.
- Prepare the buttercream as per the instructions on that recipe post and then at the last stage of mixing add 1 -2 teaspoons of cinnamon (to your taste) the 6 Tbs of hazelnut flour and 1/4 cup of COOLED ganache, mix well.
- For the simple syrup, bring the water & sugar to boil in a small sauce pot. let it boil for 1 minute, then remove from heat and cool to room temperature, add the liqueur
- Assemble the cake as shown in the video tutorial, but be sure to brush each cake layer with about 3-4 Tbs of that soaking syrup!
- **To make the truffles for decor: when the ganache recipe is cooled a can be easily scooped, scoop balls and dip them in more hazelnut flour to coat.
Notes
This completed layer cake can be left at room temperature in a cool spot for up to 2 days
For longer storage refrigerate for up to 1 week
Hi, this cake looks amazing! If I wanted to recreate with but with using dairy (cows milk and butter) is it just a straight substitute?
Hi Thanks, no sorry this recipe has been worked out perfectly to be vegan. I hope you will try it!
Hi , Gretchen ,I made this marvelous cake on my son’s birthday , belive me its soo deliciouce . I followed all the recipy step by step. Thanks.
I made this marvelouce cake on my sons’s borthday . It was sooo deliciouce i followed step by step
Hello Gretchen! I’m doing this cake right now, and trying to find how are you doing the nice shiny chocolate glaze. Can you help me please?
With best regards, Sara ❤️
Hi Sara, sorry if this recipe post seems confusing, I am going to make some updates since this is an older recipe! But I am using ganache as the glaze icing here, I DO list that in the recipe portion
CLICK HERE for more info about vegan ganache
Ciao!! May I try your amazing recipe without plant based egg freely vegan? I live in Italy and is not possibile to recive in my country…. thank a lot in advance??
Hi there, if you have another proprietary blend that is similar to the plant based egg? Then yes! You can try it with what I think would be good results, but I cannot guarantee!
If not, then try flax meal, with no other changes.
this recipe is awesome. you are awesome. i follow a lot of vegan bakers/cooks but your baked goods are next level. thanks for all your creativity. saw your most recent youtube post and just want to reiterate…you are awesome.
Dear Gretchen,
I, unfortunately, can not order Freely’s vegan egg, as I live in Australia. If I use flax meal, do I just have to put in four teaspoons of flax meal and shift it in with the dry ingredients?
Thanks 🙂
Flax is a very high fat ingredient, and this cake is already high in fat from the nuts. I would prefer if you can use another egg replacer like OrgraN? I believe is a comparable replacer.
Orgran definitely didn’t work. Still cleaning the oven…
Please could someone tell me what 4tsp of Freely is equivalent to? Is it 4 eggs? 2 eggs? I don’t know what I am trying to sub. Thanks!
Oh No! Good to know though, thank you for letting me know. I am not familiar with that product, but I though it was similar to one of the dry blends we have here 🙁
Sorry that happened! I guess it must have some added leaveners to it??! 4tsp of freely vegan is = 2 eggs
Thanks! I will try again, it looks delicious
I desperately want a mix between this cake and your chocolate wacky cake! Do you think I could add cocoa to this, or hazelnut flour to the wacky cake? Without asking you to write a new recipe, what quantity would you try of either to start?
This was absolutely amazing! I agree with the next level comment – this cake is divine! I’m such a chocolate everything person, but this cake has changed my mind. I ended up having a few scrap pieces of cake from mismatched circle pans and couldn’t help but dip those pieces into the buttercream recipe as I was assembling/finishing up the cake. I bought the Plant Based Egg by Freely Vegan some time ago and it quickly has become a go-to for many of my baking needs – glad I had some on hand for this recipe. Looking forward to making this one again!
What about vegan yogurt to replace egg?
That really depends on what the recipe is. But I would not ever consider yogurt, applesauce or banana as an EGG REPLACER like many people would, to me those are more oil replacers. They do nothing for binding & leavening (which is after all what we rely on the egg to do)
So for me I use various egg replacers depending on what the recipe is and how the egg was originally acting in that particular recipe
CLICK HERE FOR MORE ABOUT EGG REPLACERS IN GENERAL
Hi Gretchen,
I found you again. Am I glad you now have some vegan recipes. I lost track of your website and tutorials when I changed computers many years ago. That taught me to always write down my favorites. Also having health issues with getting older. Getting ready for retirement, so I’ve been looking for healthier alternatives with my eating.
And I found you again. Keep up the good work and thanks for sharing. Mahalo.
Could do this as a chocolate hazelnut cake by adding cocoa powder to this mix? I’m just wondering if the extra powder would cause the battery to come out dry.
I would take out 1/2 cup flour & replace with 1/2 cup cocoa
Hi Gretchen , is it ok to use Bobs red mill egg replacement for this recipe ? It’s the only brand I could find in uk .
Thanks
While I have not tried that brand here, I believe it will work fine.
I have Bobs Red Mill egg replacer.Do I just sub that instead of the Plant based replacer that you used?Like 4 teaspoons of it?
Yes that will be fine
Hi Gretchen, I thought about making this cake but I was if you could tell me how “deep” the cake pans are. I thought about making mine in a 8 inch cake pan. But could you also tell me how deep the 7 inch one would have to be as well.
Yes sure my cake pans are all 2″ height.
You can use 8″ pans for sure, just divide batter between 2-pans
THANK YOU for the awesome recipe for the Hazlenut Sponge Cake!
I have used only 2/3 of the sugar (being Europeans, we like it considerably less sweet than typical American tongues) and used simple soy flour instead of the egg replacer, and it turned out wonderful!
(Half the recipe in a 20 cm springform gave me 3 thin layers of cake, for reference to others who may want this info.)
I used “Cookie Dough Style” Hummus to fill my cake (chickpeas creamed with nut butter and maple syrup) and coated the cake with vegan Mousse au chocolat (the aquafaba from the chickpeas + dark chocolate + some sugar), and sprinkled it with hazelnut brittle.
The cake was amazing and loved by everyone! This dough is definitely going into my standard repertoire! 😀
YAY! awesome! Im glad you loved it (me too!!) and thank you for the feedback and advise for others looking to make changes!
As promised, I used your recipe for a 3D motiv cake: https://schoenetorten.tumblr.com/post/632234830211514368
The cake was fine to work with and tasted great, albeit a bit too sweet with the marzipan. Next time, I’ll combine it with dark ganache and chopped nuts or something like that, I think…
Thanks again for the great recipe!
Addendum: I later used the residue of this cake (cake and cookie dough hummus) and made cake-pops covered with dark chocolate, and they were amazing! I can definitely recommend the combination with dark chocolate!
i tried the recipe . taqste is aqw2esome but it is very crumbly and not holding its shape at all. why so must have happenned. also it sunk in the center . i halved the recipe and baked for 30 mins. please reply
Oh No! “Not holding it’s shape” is a concern, but as you say it is also “crumbly”? this tells me it is really dry?
Now while I do specify that this cake is not your typical “vegan-super moist-bordering on gummy- cake recipe” this one is more along the lines of a European Genoise which is by nature (and not a mistake) more dry. Not dry in a bad way though LOL **I think I said all exactly this in the blog post lol…
But a Genoise style cake is naturally more dry, but not to the point it should be falling apart, crumbling or hard to swallow!
My first concern is that you Halved the recipe- now this is a fine thing to do of course, but often times our errors are in the math and measuring. I am not accusing you of that- but perhaps double check those things just to be sure?
Otherwise I would be sure that you used all the exact same ingredients as me? and mixed same way?
Woops…i made this content as a reply to someone else’s and can’t erase it there, but…
I desperately want a mix between this cake and your chocolate wacky cake! Do you think I could add cocoa to this, or hazelnut flour to the wacky cake? Without asking you to write a new recipe, what quantity would you try of either to start?
Hi Gretchen! I have a ton of hazelnuts and would rather make hazelnut flour. Would I need to roast them? Make hazelnut milk then dry out the pulp or can I just grind up the hazelnuts until they become a fine texture?
Thanks ☺️
No to the pulp, yes to grinding them until they are flour! Sometimes to avoid making hazelnut PASTE you will have to add some flour to it!
ROASTING LIGHTLY IS A GOOD IDE ESPECIALLY TO HELP GET THE SKINS OFF (*sorry not yelling, caps lock)