Walnut Gateau with Praline Buttercream

The Daring Bakers are at it again! (This time starring the lovely addition of my little sister Super G. Go check hers out. We talked on the phone the whole day we made it and her sounds amazing.)

This month, Chris over at Mele Cotte picked Filbert Gateau with Praline Buttercream, from Great Cakes by Carol Walter. I wasn't worried at first. I thought, actually, whew. A layer cake. This won't be so hard. I had to go and get cocky about it. I had some problems. The cake stuck to the pan. Bad.

See? So I had to bake the cake part again, the second time using a sheet of parchment paper to line the bottom of the pan. But that was the only real problem. Otherwise it just took forever and my kitchen was really hot.

Let me tell you how I made mine different. Instead of the hazelnuts in the original recipe, which can be found on Mele Cotte, I used walnuts. I had a giant bag of them in the freezer, so it wouldn't cost me anything and I'm not sure I can get hazelnuts here without traveling some distance to get to the big city. Then instead of the rum or orange flavored liquor, I used Crown Royal. We're whiskey people here and we were fresh out of bourbon. We had two bottles of Crown and believe me, the Brain was not too happy I was cooking with the good whiskey. And finally, instead of the apricot glaze I used blackberry.

After that white chocolate opera cake that was far too sweet for my taste buds, I was excited to see how this would taste. It was fantastic! I cut a small sliver after I let it chill and brought it to the Brain with two forks. We both sat there worried that I had spent the entire day baking this beautiful thing only to find out we didn't like it. In fact when the Brain came home and I was still working on it he said, "This isn't going to be like that cake you made we couldn't eat is it? Hey! Are you cooking with the Crown!?!?" But fortunately we loved it. It was light, it wasn't too sweet. It was rich, but not overpowering. The Brain ate the whole piece. The next morning when I had a slice for breakfast, I knew I was in trouble and gave it away before lunch. Whew! That could have been disastrous for my hips!

Make sure to check out all the other Daring Bakers and how they all made theirs different. And especially check out Super G's. Hers looks great too! And thank you Chris for such a memorably delicious challenge!