Frosted Hazelnut Cake

This is my version of a traditional British frosted walnut cake. It is a hazelnut and light brown sugar three layered sponge sandwiched with vanilla buttercream, coated in a boiled frosting and topped with caramelised hazelnuts.

The sponge itself has a deep caramel flavour due to the light brown sugar which enhances the earthiness of the hazelnuts wonderfully. The vanilla buttercream complements this well with its light vanilla taste. The frosting posed a few challenges due to Mary Berry's poor instructions, therefore after two initial attempts, my third was a change in recipe and technique ending up make an icing based on an italian meringue. It was a little runnier than desired, potentially due to an unclean bowl, but after being spread on the cake it has set well to give a crunchy exterior but lovely soft texture in the mouth. I am very happy with the end result after all my perseverance. I think I am going to need to develop a good boiled icing recipe that does work, producing the delicious grain-free result I had in the end today.