This is the cake that I made for my sister-in-law’s birthday, which happens to fall on Christmas Day.  It is a version of the Triple Chocolate Cake.  The cake part itself is the genoise from the chocolate bull’s eye cakes, baked in two 9 x 2 inch pans.  ( I doubled the recipe for each 9 x 2 pan)  I then syruped them with frangelico infused simple syrup. ( I used the syrup recipe for the chocolate bull’s eye cake’s and quadrupled it - so I sprinkled each side of the two cakes with 1/2 cup of syrup )  The filling is a hazelnut butter whipped ganache ( I used the peanut butter whipped ganache recipe and just replaced the peanut butter with hazelnut butter ) The icing was the dark chocolate ganache.

I had great sucess with the chocolate praline sheets, except I couldn’t get them to bend nicely over the cake.  I did try, and use my hair dryer to soften the sheets once they were on the cake but they melted.  They still looked really nice wrapped around the cake.

My husband was so mesmerized with the caramel sheets.  He didn’t believe me that I had to cook the sugar to 370 degrees until he saw it on the thermometer. 

Overall, the cake tasted like a ferrero roche.  Very yummy.  I could definitely taste the alcohol in it, which I didn’t really like, but everyone else thought it was great.  The cake sat for only 24 hours before we sliced it.  I am wondering if it sat one more day, if the alcohol taste would have disappeared

The cake looks really gorgeous, Liza, so professional, your sister-in-law must have been thrilled with it.

Thank-you Jeannette.  I really wanted to make a special cake for her birthday.  She has been going through some really difficult times and I wanted to make her birthday cake special.  She was very thrilled with it.  There were only a few slices of cake left at the end of the evening and she asked me if she could take the rest home with her.  I am really happy that she liked the cake.

the cake and presentation…so beautiful.

Liza, the cake is truly, truly gorgeous!  Just perfect.  I love getting to see your work.

re: the syrup, the bull’s eye does use a lot more alcohol than the syrups from the Cake Bible, when I’ve made it I’ve backed off a bit on the liqueur.

Thank-you so much for your compliments Julie.  It is really appreciated.   I didn’t realize that the bull’s eye cakes use alot more liquer than the cakes from the cake bible.  No wonder it tasted it bit strong to me.  I will have to remember to back off on the liquer next time I make this cake.  Thanks for the tip.

Cake looks really very elegant & and yummy )

Liza, gorgeous gorgeous cake!

Thanks for your comparison on it being like ferrero rocher. I love that chocolate so this cake sounds super yummy. I will have to borrow this idea.

I am so amazed at your praline sheet and the caramelized hazelnuts. Praline sheet scares me. Hm.. maybe I should put this in my bucket list?

Thank-you Jenn.  The praline sheets scared me at first too.  But they weren’t as hard as what I thought they would be.
By the time I finished rolling out all of the sheets they had hardened.  I used my blow dryer so that they would be just flexible enough to wrap around the cake.  I tried to use my blow dryer to soften the tops of the sheets so that they would gracefully fall over the cake.  Um…that wasn’t too graceful.  They more like fell ontop of the cake flat.  So I just decided to leave the sheets standing straight on the cake.  I also found it easier to cut the bottom of sheet in a straight line with a knife so that it would line up better with the bottom of the cake.  You should try them.  I’m sure you will have great success.

Liza, that is one beautiful, beautiful cake!  And I love the way you Christmas-ed it with the preentation. The presentation is just so so pretty!

But I don’t know how you could do anything to that perfect cake layer!  It is so….perfect!  Well, luckily, you had great plans for it, because it’s pretty amazing on its own!!!!!!

Hope things smooth-out for your sister-in-law in the new year.

Aww, thanks Anne.  Your making me blush with your compliments.  I was just so happy that she liked it.  Hopefully it brightened her Christmas just a little bit.

Looks amazing and sounds delicious.  I’m definitely going to try this comibination.  The hazelnut whipped ganache sounds delicious..

I have to go along with the crowd..no other word describes your cake but gorgeous.

Thank-you Bill and missyjean.  The hazelnut whipped ganache was utterly amazing.  It just melted on your tongue.

Liza, how did you calculate the recipe of the cake in RHC to get the 2 9 inch? Do tell!

Jenn, I doubled the recipe of the bull’s eye cakes for each 2 x 9 inch cake.  So in fact I quadrupled the bull’s eye cake recipe.  I baked each cake separately for 28 - 30 minutes at 350 degrees.  I also quadrupled the syrup amount as well and soaked each side of the cakes with 1/2 cup of syrup.  Julie mentioned earlier that this recipe uses more liquer in the syrup, so I found it alittle strong for myself.  Next time I will back off on the amount of liquer.  But just to let you know, no one else complained about the cake tasting too boozy.  Everyone loved it.