Step by step homemade baking recipes
I have had this Lego man mold for months. MONTHS. I guess I figured I could put something Lego on the back burner since it’s been around for decades. But, finally I have created something worth waiting for- a giant Lego man made out of chocolate and filled with candy, just like a pinata!
This cake is for chocolate lovers only. In fact, you should probably be obsessed with chocolate in order to make this cake since every component has chocolate; from the chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream base, to the swirled chocolate wafer sticks wrapped around it, to the chocolate candy chunks on top!
Imagine this . . . hazelnut core, nutella hazelnut wafers, chocolate hazelnut coating. You with me?
Sound familiar? Like a Ferrero Rocher you say? Well, it is, but in GIANT form!
I’ve been wanting to make a homemade ferrero rocher every since I made homemade nutella. But, rather than making regular sized ones, I opted to go big. “Go big or go home” is what my brother used to say. He was referring to hockey and not chocolate, but that’s not important. When I’m referring to chocolate, I’m always referring to going BIG.
Hazelnuts are the main flavouring component to a ferrero. I find it next to impossible to find hazelnuts already roasted. To roast the hazelnuts, simply line a baking tray with parchment paper, and toast for 15-20 mins at 325F. Once the hazelnuts are fragrant and toasted, allow them to cool, and peel the skins from the nuts. They’re now ready to use!
To make the giant ferrero rocher, the general idea is to encase a hazelnut/hazelnut butter mixture, nutella wafers and coat the entire thing in chocolate and crushed hazelnuts.
If you prefer to stick with the smaller, traditional size, you can definitely do that with this recipe too. Instead of using the hazelnut butter and hazelnuts to make the core, simply use a single hazelnut. Wrap the hazelnut in the nutella mixture, roll into a ball, roll in nuts and finally melted chocolate.
Chocolate and peanut butter is one of my most favourite combinations! Whose isn’t it? All those people who yell at me in capital letters that they are allergic to peanut butter. I feel for you, I really do as I couldn’t imagine being without my addiction, but finding a substitution is probably something easier for you to do, than me. There is also this amazing thing called Google.
This recipe is a special one to me, as my girlfriend Melissa made it for us during a Christmas Cookie Exchange one year. Unfortunately, a number of years ago, she passed away. I felt so lucky being able to continue on using her Dad’s recipe for this creation. I know she would have loved it, and I appreciate my time that I got to spend with her, albeit too short.
You can make these traditionally by rolling the peanut butter mixture into balls, and dipping them into melted chocolate. But if you’re looking for an adorable Thanksgiving treat, you have to try these. They’re super simple, and the only thing that takes time is the setting of the chocolate. I address this in the video, but I chose to use melting wafers/almond bark as they set faster than regular chocolate.
What to call a pie in a cake?? A “pake”? A “cie”? Or what about “Cherappkin”? Appcherrkin? Pumpcherple? CHERPUMPLE!
I think I’m going to stick with “Pie in a cake”. It much easier to figure out what in the world I’m talking about!
This cake is admittedly time consuming since you have to bake three pies ahead of time, as well as prepare two types of cake batter. It’s definitely an investment in your life, but it is bound to impress anyone that looks at it. And most likely they’ll have to look at it twice to figure out what in the world they are looking at!
To make the investment of time shorter, using premade pies from a grocery store bakery work excellently, as does using box mixes for the cake batter. In the recipe below I have provided the link to all of our homemade versions of the pies, and cakes, if you are so inclinded for this big project.
Since the cake was such a big project, I went with an easy, light covering. Instead of using a heavy buttercream, I thought whipping cream would be best paired with the cakes/pies. After all, there is a lot going on in this cake, so the last thing it needed was another element to confuse the taste buds.
You can choose to go with any flavour of cake batter, as well as any type of pie when you’re making your own version of this. The hardest part of that will be trying to name it!
When you’re baking your pies, make sure that they are at least an inch (2 centimeters) smaller than your cake pan. This will ensure that there is just enough room for the cake batter to completely envelop the pie. You want to make sure that you spread the cake batter on the bottom, sides and top so that the batter prevents any of the pie from escaping while baking- especially in the fruit pies! Roughly, I wanted an inch (2cm) of cake batter underneath and on top of the pie to help prevent that from happening.
This “PAKE”, “CIE”, whatever you want to call it is super fun to make. I hope you have a blast !
Choose a great tasting apple to use for dipping. I went with Honeycrisp and I was worried at first that they would be too sweet with the caramel and chocolate, but they were perfect! When I took the apples to a work function, the thing that my coworkers liked best was the combination of flavours with the type of apple I had chosen.
Choosing which additional toppings to put onto the apples has endless possibilities! I chose three that I thought would make great combinations, but you can change them up however you would want to. My favourite of the three was the peanut butter one. I think it was because of the combination of saltiness of the peanut butter items and the sweetness of the caramel and apple! Whichever one you choose, they’re all delicious!!
